Why Attack Surface Management(ASM)?
The quickness at which organizations respond to and contain data breaches falls short of the increasing security dangers they confront. This is a critical issue for businesses. This can be altered with an efficient attack surface management (ASM) solution.
The average cost of a data breach hit a new high of USD 4.45 million this year, according to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach 2023 Report. Additionally, it took 277 days to find and stop a data breach.
Speeding up the detection, reaction, and neutralization of security breaches is becoming more and more important as hackers develop the sophistication of their attack strategies.
The function of attack surface management in containing data breaches
Many organizations find themselves in a never-ending race against time as they attempt to close the gap between the time a data breach happens and when it is properly contained, while deploying an array of cybersecurity procedures to protect sensitive data. Organizations are under more pressure to improve their breach containment procedures as data breaches on the dark web continue to make headlines.
Your security approach can be greatly aided by using an efficient attack surface management solution to assist you reduce the risks of data breaches. In fact, the Cost of a Data Breach research found that firms using an ASM solution were able to find and stop data breaches 75% faster than those not using ASM. Additionally, firms using ASM contained breaches 83 days faster than those not using it.
Five ways IBM Security Randori Recon helps create data breach resistance
Businesses can take proactive steps to lessen their susceptibility to various cyberattacks, including ransomware, malware, phishing, compromised credentials (caused by lax password security), and unauthorized access, used by hackers. By aggressively regulating and minimizing their attack surface, they can accomplish this. ASM solution IBM Security Randori Recon plays a crucial part in your data protection strategy.
1. Locating high-value assets and unmanaged systems
Any list of network-connected items is only a portion of what actually exists. Security teams are unaware of how many workloads, servers, applications, and other assets are hidden by shadow IT and orphaned IT. These unidentified assets put you at danger because hackers don’t limit their reconnaissance attempts to what is in your inventory.
Randori Recon performs continuous asset discovery and risk prioritization from an adversarial perspective to assist you in locating and securing high-value assets that are most attractive to attacks. It accurately and sparingly identifies your organization’s exposures, including as IPv4, IPv6, cloud, and IoT assets, while limiting false positives and lowering alert fatigue.
2. Finding exploitable flaws and configuration errors
Your attack repair process may take longer if you have poor insight into your risk posture on the outside. With manual approaches, it may not be feasible to find misconfigured management panels, expired access permissions, and other unanticipated issues.
Automated ASM technologies, such as Randori Recon, give enterprises a complete picture of their whole digital attack surface, highlighting potential points of entry that cybercriminals might use to breach antivirus, firewall, or other security measures.
3. Setting your cyber risk priorities
Not all vulnerabilities are instantly harmful or likely to be exploited during a breach of your digital perimeter, even if they are all significant. It can be beneficial to shift your attention from the patch management version of the whack-a-mole game to the vulnerabilities that represent the most risk to your company.
Randori Recon identifies attack patterns and methods that a real-world attacker is more likely to use. Its risk-based prioritization system detects high-value assets and generates a stack-ranked list of your riskiest targets.
Understanding your attack surface enables your company to rank vulnerabilities according to their seriousness and potential effects on the bottom line.
4. Ensuring that security procedures are followed
As your company expands or changes to meet the demands of a remote workforce, security processes from access management protocols to VPN setups and firewall audit workflows can fall behind.
Continuous attack surface monitoring can help you determine whether your security procedures are keeping up with your developing attack surface. Randori gives you access to real-time information on how consistently your security procedures are being followed, enhancing your resilience.
ASM enables you to establish layered security controls and gives you visibility into potential weak spots. You may lower the possibility of a successful data breach by bolstering the various defense layers, including network security, endpoint security, and access restrictions.
5. Providing advice for corrective action
Randori Recon suggests corrective actions to assist you increase your cyber resilience.
It offers in-product instructions on how to address particular vulnerabilities and thorough explanations of tactics to help lower your exposure overall.
With this improved understanding, you can allocate your resources more effectively and concentrate on the key security holes that present the greatest danger of a data breach.
Best methods for preventing data breaches
Security must be incorporated into every level of software and hardware development if you want to increase your cyber resistance. Your data breach prevention plan can be strengthened by:
- Utilizing a zero-trust strategy to asset protection and being aware of how vulnerable your business may be to relevant cyberattacks
- App testing, penetration testing, vulnerability assessments, and social engineering exercises are carried out from the viewpoint of an attacker in order to find and fix flaws before they cause a data breach.
- Strengthening the protection of personal data and personally identifiable information (PII) to avoid identity theft requires the use of multifactor authentication and strong passwords.
- Educating staff members about security issues and equipping them with the knowledge they need to protect critical data
- Keeping offline copies of your data will help you avoid data loss and recover fast in an emergency.
- Reduce costs and breach containment time by practicing incident response (IR) plans and assembling a team knowledgeable about IR processes
Utilize Randori Recon to reduce the cost of data breach
Businesses may discover and reduce possible hazards before they are taken advantage of by hostile actors with the use of an efficient ASM solution like Randori Recon. In 2023, IBM hired Forrester Consulting to undertake the Total Economic ImpactTM of IBM Security Randori research, which revealed an 85% reduction in damages resulting from an external attack reaching $1.5 million. According to the study, the financial and brand effects from an assault can be reduced by shortening the period of time an exposed asset is left “in the wild.”
Although you should take additional precautions, such as encryption, strong access controls, employee training, and other security measures, you can improve your security posture and lessen the likelihood and severity of data breaches by actively managing your attack surface.
