“90% report dramatic increases against attack surface.”
The attack surface evolved from a simple vector to a more dynamic security event powered by adversarial artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities. In the past, SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses) faced thousands of security events per day; now, they face millions in the same period.
ForeNova understands the need to reduce attack surface threats by helping our clients lower their operations costs.
What Are The 5 Ways to Reduce Your External Attack Surface?
Reducing the external attack surface begins with five steps. Each step relies on the previous step to help reduce the overall attack surface, not to increase the risk.
1. Asset Discovery and Inventory Control
Unmanaged devices, rogue Wi-Fi access points, and unauthorized virtual instances in the corporate private cloud are trademarks of shadow IT. Employees, contractors, and vendors create private networks and application platforms and access remote systems while bypassing corporate IT controls and failing to follow policies.
This rogue behavior creates several vulnerable places within the enterprise network. Hackers scanning their targets’ networks, cloud instances, and public-facing applications will discover these rogue elements. Most of these rogue elements remain unpatched and susceptible to exploitation.
SMBs wanting to block shadow IT behavior can implement asset discovery and inventory control tools. These tools scan for new devices and existing approved ones. IT departments leveraging these tools can detect unapproved devices, applications, and hosts. By using these tools, CIOs and CISOs will have the means to block access to rogue devices while reducing the risk of their attack surface.
2. Vulnerability Management and Prioritization
The ability to detect vulnerabilities requires SMBs to invest in continuous monitoring tools. Thanks to adversarial AI, vulnerabilities become exploited far more rapidly. SMBs investing in vulnerability management tools must also interlock with effective patch management and automated incident response capabilities.
Manual vulnerability management, remediation, and incident response are becoming outdated due to human error and alert fatigue. Automation for incident response, remediation, and reporting has become essential for SMBs to stop the growth of AI-enabled cyberattacks. These tools also have a positive impact, lowering the risk of human error regarding configuring security controls and misapplying patches.
SMBs can set asset protection prioritization levels for each asset after establishing a continuous scanning, remediation, and reporting vulnerability management workflow. The prioritizing of assets should remain very dynamic as the vulnerabilities become remediated, creating a rapid shift in the risk against the other assets within the attack surface.
3. Attack Surface Monitoring and Management
Hackers will continue to be successful in their exploitations while SMBs slowly roll out resources, including automated response and remediation capabilities.
SMBs also struggle with the cost of acquiring new AI-based cybersecurity defensive tools and hiring and keeping valuable security operations talent. Hence, they must seek help from managed detection and response (MDR) providers like ForeNova.
MDR businesses solve several issues regarding reducing the risk of the organization’s attack surface.
- Reducing the cost of future proofing of the security architecture
- Provide 24×7 monitoring, response, and remediation capabilities
- Reducing security operations cost by leveraging MDR engineering resources in place of in-house talent
- Leverage experienced engineering resources that are already familiar with AI-based adversarial attacks.
4. Access Control and Security Perimeter Hardening?
Another critical area of the enterprise security architecture is the access control and the hardening of the security perimeter.
For years, brute-force-type attacks overwhelmed access control systems by flooding users with a range of password guesses, hoping for a pairing. Security engineers have used login limits to help deal with brute-force attacks. However, this strategy also created an operational challenge. Most brute-force attacks would also deny the user access to that specific application or access. Brute-force attacks became more of a denial-of-service (DoS) attack.
What is Multifactor Authentication (MFA)?
Security engineers respond to next-generation cyberattacks by adding multifactor authentication (MFA). This second method of authentication provides even more excellent access-level protection. However, MFA solutions have been breached several times.
What is Least Privileged Access Control?
Least privilege access grants users and applications only essential permissions, minimizing the attack surface. This strategy reduces potential damage if an account is compromised, enhancing security and limiting breach impacts.
Security teams combine MFA with least privilege access, automated remediation, and incident response. This strategy provides much-needed hardening of the security perimeter. SMBs will also use next-generation firewalls, endpoint security tools, and intrusion prevention to help fortify their perimeter security.
The Value of Network Segmentation
Another critical component of access control and security perimeter hardening is network segmentation. Network segmentation began as a static security control based on credential authentication and the security posture of the device’s cyber hygiene when attempting to connect to the network. If a device missed several patches or had exposed vulnerabilities, it became quarantined.
Network segmentation policies interlock with the least privilege. Security engineers can map only the specific hosts they can access based on the user’s need. This security function helps reduce the attack surface by limiting what hosts and network users can connect to.
This strategy has also been proven to stop ransomware from propagating by attempting lateral movement within its victims’ networks. Hackers and scammers will also try to execute a remote connection to a management console or application that will be blocked. Network segmentation policies only permit connections from a specific source IP to internal networks and hosts.
5. How to Address Third-Party Risk?
Portions of most enterprises also house third-party control systems, network devices, and applications. While these IT assets may not belong to your organization, once they become part of your enterprise network, they become part of the attack surface.
Many third-party systems remain under joint or remote operations control. SMBs hosting these third-party systems need a minimum read-only access into the management layer. Setting read-only access to the management layer helps the hosting organization record the asset within their inventory tool along with having the ability to monitor.
Extending monitoring functions from a third party is common. The challenge often lies in providing patches and other remediation. If a third-party network or host application becomes compromised, the hacker’s ability to propagate across the hosting organization’s network becomes a genuine concern.
Network segmentation, less privileged access, and MFA become even more critical for these third-party IT assets.
SMBs already consumed with monitoring and remediating their assets now must increase the workload of their security operations engineers. These engineers now need to monitor and respond to security events from third-party API connectors, hosted applications, and network devices not owned by the hosting organization.
How to Deal with the Dynamic Changes to the Attack Surface?
Attack surfaces are far from static. SMBs add users, remove devices, add applications, and even acquire companies. These constant changes require SMBs to leverage more artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities to remain fluid. Adding users creates more vulnerabilities, and failing to remove outdated devices creates more cybersecurity risks.
SMBs leveraging their investment in inventory asset management helps notify when dynamic changes to the attack surface occur. Access control and security perimeter hardening become the initial enforcement point into the enterprise network. Security engineers must enable these advanced controls and strategies to help with attack surface management and containment.
MDR Becoming a Strategic Necessity
Reducing the risk of an attack surface is not a single event or something addressed only during budget season. SMBs will continue to suffer from constant cyberattacks without a secure enterprise environment, including access control, external perimeter, internal network, cloud instances, and third-party platform security.
More to the point, 80% of cyber breaches against an organization’s attack surface are because of external threats, like phishing and ransomware, urging SMBs to enhance security and automate responses.
Access control, asset management, risk prioritization, continuous monitoring, incident response automation, remediation, and containment of security outbreaks are just some of the daily activities of an organization’s security operations teams.
MDR providers develop offerings to augment an in-house security operations team or become the outsourced provider. These providers bring their experience and expertise in reducing attack surface risk by leveraging their knowledge around various adaptive security controls. These controls include asset inventory, access control, perimeter hardening, automated incident response, continuous monitoring, remediation, and compliance reporting.
SMBs facing threats against their attack surface will benefit from a relationship with an MDR provider like ForeNova.
