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NextGen External Attack Surface Management

Build Accurate Asset Inventory, Discover Shadow Risks & Active Validation of Passive Risks

What is Attack Surface Management (ASM)?

Attack Surface Management (ASM) is a cybersecurity practice focused on identifying, monitoring, and managing the potential entry points (attack surfaces) an attacker could exploit. This includes discovering all digital assets an organization owns, such as domains, subdomains, IP addresses, services, and web applications. ASM continuously assesses these assets to identify vulnerabilities and security gaps. By maintaining a comprehensive and up-to-date inventory of all assets, ASM helps organizations minimize their exposure to cyber threats and improve their overall security posture.

Gaps with today's ASM solutions

01
False Positives

Passive recon leads to 40% false positives, causing alert fatigue and missed critical threats.

02
False Negatives

Traditional ASM often fails to detect all risks, leading to dangerous false negatives where critical vulnerabilities remain unnoticed.

03
Outdated and Irrelevant Data

Reliance on passive data sources such as OSINT and network assessments often provides outdated information, highlighting resolved issues or irrelevant problems, leading to confusion.

04
Too many Alerts

Traditional ASM tools probe too many alerts causing alert fatigue resulting in important risks being unattended.

05
High Cost of Operations

Current ASM platforms need significant manual effort to remove false positives which increases the TCO.

FireCompass Next Gen EASM – Combining Passive & Active Recon with Pen Testing Playbooks

Passive Recon

Without direct interaction, FireCompass gathers information using methods such as social engineering, WHOIS records, and search engines. This approach collects publicly available data about organizational assets, including IP addresses, usernames, and operational details, ensuring that critical information is gathered stealthily and without alerting potential adversaries.

Active Recon

FireCompass Recon Platform continuously engages with target systems using probes, banner capturing, and service fingerprinting to identify assets. This process includes contextual attribution to create a detailed and searchable graph of entities and relationships, indexing domains, subdomains, IPs, services, web app pages, and public code. This comprehensive mapping of the attack surface ensures no asset goes unnoticed.

Attack Surface Testing & Validation

FireCompass actively validates discovered risks with up to 98% accuracy through techniques like active fingerprinting and probing. By triggering vulnerabilities and performing in-depth assessments, the platform ensures accurate risk management and minimizes false positives. This continuous validation helps in maintaining an accurate inventory and understanding the security posture in real-time.

Additional Pen Testing and Red Teaming Playbook Options

By integrating automated penetration testing and red teaming, FireCompass offers a comprehensive approach to security evaluation. This combination ensures continuous and thorough assessment of defenses, identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities effectively. The platform’s holistic evaluation helps in understanding the potential attack vectors and strengthens the security infrastructure.

Supervised AI-Based Learning

FireCompass uses AI to fine tune the data and reduce false positives. It also uses supervised learning to do better prioritization of assets and its risks.

Continuous Risk Hunting and Real Time Alerts

Continuous Risk Hunting & Real-time Alerts: Employs advanced attribution techniques to discover peripheral assets and initiates Multi-Stage Hunting Playbooks. Executes over multiple attacks and checks on network, web, cloud, and other assets via a globally distributed sensor network. Identifies critical risks within 24-72 hours, providing real-time alerts, proactive threat detection, and enhancing the overall security posture.

FireCompass Featured In Gartner® Hype Cycle For External Attack Surface Management (EASM) 2023

Advantages of FireCompass

Better Discovery of Assets

Discover all assets, both known and unknown, including cloud and on-premise assets.

Low False Positives

Significantly Reduce the number of false positives

Better Risk-Based Prioritization

Make sure that critical issues are addressed first, focusing on genuine threats.

Reduced Alert Fatigue

Efficiently manage alerts, preventing overload and allowing security team to focus on real threats.

Frequently Asked Questions

As Gartner puts it, “External attack surface management (EASM) refers to the processes, technology and managed services deployed to discover internet-facing enterprise assets and systems and associated vulnerabilities which include exposed servers, credentials, public cloud service misconfigurations, deep dark web disclosures and third-party partner software code vulnerabilities that could be exploited by adversaries. EASM provides valuable risk context and actionable information through: Monitoring continuously for exposed assets and asset discovery for external-facing assets and systems Analysis to assess and prioritize the risks and vulnerabilities discovered External attack surface management is a top priority for security teams and security risk managers.”

FireCompass prioritizes External Attack Surface Management efforts by first assessing the risk levels of existing attack surface areas, and then determining the most effective mitigation strategies for each. It then prioritizes the remediation of the highest-risk areas to reduce the overall attack surface. The process includes identifying and classifying attack surface assets, mapping the attack surface, analyzing and assessing risk, and implementing mitigation strategies. FireCompass also offers various advisories and recommendations to improve the effectiveness of attack surface management efforts.

– Strengthened cyber security posture: Continuous external attack surface management provides a comprehensive and continual picture of an organization’s external attack surface. This allows organizations to better identify and prioritize threats and vulnerabilities, and take proactive steps to address them.

– Enhanced visibility: Continuous monitoring of the external attack surface provides a greater visibility into an organization’s cyber security posture, allowing for more efficient and effective security operations.

– Improved compliance: By regularly assessing the external attack surface, organizations can ensure that their security measures comply with regulatory requirements and standards.

– Reduced attack surface: Continuous external attack surface management helps organizations identify and address weaknesses in their external attack surface, reducing the risk of a successful attack.

– Cost savings: By investing in a continuous external attack surface management process, organizations can save time and money by reducing the amount of manual labor required to scan and assess their attack surface.

An organization’s External attack surface management (EASM) refers to the processes, technology and managed services deployed to discover internet-facing enterprise assets/ systems and associated vulnerabilities like exposed servers, credentials, public cloud service misconfigurations, deep dark web disclosures that could be exploited by attackers.  On the other hand the internal attack surface represents everything inside an organization’s network that employees use.

FireCompass automates External Attack Surface Management by providing a centralized platform to identify and prioritize external attack surfaces and vulnerabilities. It uses machine learning and advanced analytics to continuously monitor and scan the external attack surfaces and identify potential threats. It also provides detailed reporting and analytics to help organizations gain better insights into their attack surface and take corrective actions accordingly. FireCompass also helps organizations to actively manage their external attack surface by providing patching advice, reporting, and remediation capabilities.

FireCompass helps reduce an attack surface by helping organizations identify and prioritize critical assets, such as applications, data, and systems that are candidates for removal or mitigation. By providing visibility into the attack surface, FireCompass can identify potential threats and vulnerabilities, as well as detect and alert users to suspicious activities. This helps organizations better understand their attack surface and focus resources on mitigating known risks. FireCompass also provides real-time visibility and insights into the attack surface, which can be used to create threat models and develop security strategies that are tailored to an organization’s specific needs.

FireCompass reduces cyber risk by providing a comprehensive risk assessment to organizations. It uses an AI-driven platform to identify risks and prioritize them based on their impact on the organization. It also provides actionable insights and recommendations for mitigating those risks. FireCompass helps organizations to identify and address cyber threats quickly and efficiently, reducing the risk of a security breach.

External Attack Surface Management can be an invaluable asset for small businesses. It can help them identify and mitigate potential risks to their online presence, allowing them to protect their customers’ data, their corporate data, and their intellectual property. This can also help small businesses remain up to date on the latest cybersecurity trends and technologies. Additionally, it can help them reduce their overall security costs as they can focus on preventing attacks instead of responding to them. Finally, it can help them ensure their compliance with industry standards and regulations.

– Asset discovery and inventory: Identifying and cataloging all assets connected to the network that could be a potential target for an attack.

– Network security: Establishing strong network security policies and procedures, including firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and access control.

– Vulnerability assessment: Assessing the security of all assets to identify weaknesses and potential attack vectors.

– Patch management: Installing, updating, and managing security patches and updates on assets.
– Security monitoring: Monitoring network activity for suspicious or malicious activity.

– Incident response: Developing an incident response plan and practicing incident response procedures.

– Managing up and down: Providing metrics to risk owners and educating users and IT staff on security best practices.

External Attack Surface Management is a proactive approach to securing an organization’s external resources, such as websites, web applications, and cloud services. It involves scanning for potential vulnerabilities, monitoring for malicious activity, and responding quickly to any threats detected. Threat intelligence is information gathered from outside sources, such as hacker forums and dark web sources, to identify and anticipate potential threats. By leveraging threat intelligence, organizations can be better informed when it comes to external attack surface management, allowing them to proactively address potential threats before they become an issue.

External Attack Surface Management can be used to improve security posture by proactively identifying and addressing potential security vulnerabilities in external-facing systems, including web applications. This is done by scanning for known vulnerabilities, assessing current security controls, and conducting penetration tests. Additionally, external attack surface management helps organizations prioritize risk mitigation efforts by providing visibility into potential attack vectors, allowing organizations to focus their resources on the most critical risks. Finally, external attack surface management helps organizations stay up-to-date on the latest threats and trends, enabling them to better prepare for future attacks. In other words, it democratizes red teaming by distributing information to the entire organization.

– Malware Attack Scenarios: FireCompass can detect exposed services, URLs, and misconfigurations, helping to identify susceptibility to malware initial access.

– Web Application Attack Scenarios: FireCompass can detect sites for potential web application attacks, such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and malicious code injection.

– Exposed Services: FireCompass can detect and analyze exposed services, such as open ports and unpatched systems, which can be exploited by attackers.

– Data Breach Scenarios: FireCompass can detect and analyze data breaches, helping to identify data theft and credential leaks.

– Reputational Risk Scenarios: FireCompass can detect and analyze DNS records for reputational risks, such as brand misuse, phishing domains, and credentials leaks.

FireCompass helps organizations meet the requirements of red teaming and penetration testing to comply with specific standards such as PCI DSS, ISO 27001, and OSFI, FISMA, and HIPAA. FireCompass provides automated risk assessment and monitoring to identify potential security vulnerabilities in the IT environment in real-time, helping organizations quickly understand the impact of any changes or new technologies that are being implemented. FireCompass also provides an audit trail and reporting capabilities to ensure that any potential weaknesses are identified and remediated.

External Attack Surface Management works with endpoint security to identify, monitor, and protect all externally facing assets from external threats. This includes improper network placement, scanning for vulnerabilities, and patching any security holes in the systems exposed. Additionally, external attack surface management can be used to emulate external threat scenarios such as phishing attacks, malware injection, credential stuffing and web application attacks where endpoint controls may or may not be effective. The emulation of attacks can test these endpoint defenses before they are circumvented by attackers.

– Number and severity of external vulnerabilities detected and patched.

– Number of external assets correctly discovered and attributed.

– Number of unused or unmanaged domains eliminated

– Number of unused or unmanaged IPs eliminated

– Percentage reduction in “Shadow IT”

– Mean Time to resolution for external threats.

– Number or percentage of external systems regularly patched.

– Ratio of time spent on EASM tasks versus more valuable work.

– Number of Asset Scans performed on a quarterly/yearly basis.

– Percentage change in external attack surface.

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Renowned Security Technologist Partners with AI-Driven Penetration Testing Leader to Help Organizations Stay Ahead of Emerging Threats BOSTON, MA, UNITED STATES, November 27, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ — FireCompass, a leader in AI-powered Penetration Testing, Continuous Automated Red Teaming (CART), and NextGen Attack Surface Management (ASM), is thrilled to announce that Bruce Schneier, an internationally renowned security… Read More »Bruce Schneier Joins FireCompass as Advisor to Shape the Future of AI-Powered Automated Penetration Testing

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Build your security with the best

FireCompass is a SaaS platform for Continuous Automated Red Teaming (CART) and External Attack Surface Management (EASM) that acts as an integral part of a good exposure management program. 

  • Single Platform for Attack Surface Management and Automated Penetration Testing & Red Team
  • Daily Risk Port Scanning & Adversary Emulation through multiple Attack Playbooks
  • Prioritized Risks with real-time alerts for faster detection and remediation
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“The tool has exceeded our expectations”

– Risk Manager, Top 3 Telecom in USA