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Enterprises Face Fewer Attack Paths in an Evolving Cybersecurity Landscape

As organizations expand their digital footprint, the attack surface becomes more susceptible to exploitation. Daily news about data breaches, ransomware attacks, and other cyber- attacks hit newspaper headlines. Data also points towards the urgency of addressing such vulnerabilities.

According to the 2024 State of the External Attack Surface Report findings, the number of exposed databases doubled in 2023, and 79% of threat alerts were generated from externally exposed sources.

Understanding Attack Surface Attack surface refers to the summation of all potential entry points, such as endpoints and vulnerabilities, that allow hackers to enter a system.

Put simply, this is the entire surface area of an enterprise at risk of hacking and security breaches. Given the increasing utilization of technologies such as IoT, most, if not all, modern- day businesses rely on a considerable volume of devices, network nodes, and web apps, to name a few.

Thus, organizations with a vast attack surface area require continuous attack surface monitoring to increase visibility and ensure all vulnerabilities across multiple aspects of a network are detected and remediated well before it is too late.

Understanding the Threats of Increasing Attack Surface The attack surface expansion has made it increasingly

challenging for enterprises to maintain a secure posture. The attacks are commonplace and serve as a wake-up call for organizations that take the threat of the attack surface for granted.

Cybercriminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated and are always looking for new ways to exploit weaknesses in an enterprise’s digital infrastructure.

Causes of Attack Surface Over the past two years, the attack surface has been driven by numerous factors, such as increasing usage of public Cloud, IoT, and application-related vulnerabilities.

However, the most crucial reason is the sprawling usage of additional third-party APIs or Application Programming Interfaces that help various systems and software to interact with each other.

A Gartner report also found that 76% of organizations have experienced some cyberattack due to an unknown, unmanaged, or poorly managed internet-facing asset.

Components of Attack Surface
Typically, the attack surface is formed by four different components:

On-premise Assets: This component comprises servers, hardware, and other on-site assets.

Cloud Network: These are all of the devices that utilize the cloud in order to work and store data. These can include SaaS programs, cloud-based databases, servers, and many more.

Third-party/ External Assets: An additional factor is the external partners and vendors. They have partial access to sensitive company data. They can access, store, and even transfer on insecure, vulnerable to attack, networks.

Subsidiary networks: A parent company’s attack surface expands with each subsidiary, and these shared networks create vulnerabilities. Attackers exploit these weaknesses.

Mitigating Attack Surface Risks: The Power of Attack Surface Management To combat this threat, experts recommend a holistic approach involving automated tools, such as API scanners, and offensive testing.

By regularly assessing the effectiveness of security measures and identifying new vulnerabilities, enterprises can proactively address potential entry points for attackers.

Conclusion
As cyber threats continue to evolve, it’s clear that attack surface management will play a critical role in the future of enterprise security. That demands proactive risk identification, prioritizing risks based on severity, and automated and continuous penetration testing. This helps organizations build resilient systems, protect valuable assets, and maintain the trust of their customers and stakeholders.

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