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Teams inside security operation centers (SOCs) have a lot on their plates. Threats are multiplying and evolving; their organization’s digital infrastructure is sprawling and complex; many assets are outdated or configured improperly; and employees accidentally create shadow IT. The issues are endless. To effectively handle challenges like these, one proactive tactic SOCs have implemented is attack surface management (ASM).

There’s a simple way to explain this approach: Find and correct vulnerabilities and exposures before adversaries find them. The fewer the risks, the fewer the attacks a SOC has to mitigate. Finding these risks – fully and quickly – is challenging in itself. However, ASM makes it happen.

Read the SOC Guide to ASM white paper to learn:

• How attack surfaces continually expand and become more complex.
• Why SOC teams need a 24/7 comprehensive, up-to-date asset inventory.
• How ASM efficiently locates assets, prioritizes vulnerabilities and automates alerts.

Download the paper to gain insights on how SOC teams can leverage ASM. Take on the fiercest adversaries while focusing team resources on the most critical needs.

Insights for CISO on Their ASM Journey

The idea of an attack surface is not new, but how organizations and CISOs need to view their attack surfaces should be updated. Traditionally, IT has looked at an organization’s attack surface from the inside out, asking questions like “What are the assets that connect to the wider internet?” and “Where is the perimeter that must be defended?”

CISOs should be looking from the outside in at their risk, asking questions like “Which assets in the cloud or belonging to supply chains are connected back to the company network?” and “How many of those assets are unknown?”

Download this guide to understand:

• The big risks to look out for
• How to measure success in an attack surface management plan

Approach ASM with a Plan

Attack surface management (ASM) solutions are used by organizations to discover, analyze, categorize and manage externally facing assets. By doing so, security teams gain an outside-in view of their assets, emulating an attacker’s perspective of the organization’s attack surface. This can help security teams identify any vulnerable, exposed assets that attackers might use as part of a cyberattack and then take appropriate remediation actions to address these vulnerabilities, thus mitigating cyber risks.

Read this white paper by Enterprise Strategy Group and the Cortex® Xpanse™ team to learn:

• Top reasons why organizations need ASM solutions and why now
• Product requirements to consider for ASM
• Recommendations for creating a successful ASM program

Download “Attack Surface Management Buyer’s Guide: Things to Consider” today.

68% Expect Board to Request an ASM Plan This Year

In 2021, MIT Technology Review Insights, in association with Palo Alto Networks, surveyed senior executives with technology decision-making responsibilities in the Asia-Pacific region to gain critical insights into what security teams and high-level stakeholders are doing to understand and counter cyberattacks.

Read the report to learn:

• The state of ASM in organizations today
• Why you should expect your board of directors to ask about your ASM plan
• How ASM can help keep you secure

Download the MIT Technology Review Insights report.

Insights for Vulnerability Managers on Their ASM Journey

The idea of attack surface management (ASM) is not new, but how organizations and vulnerability managers (VMs) view their attack surfaces should be updated. Traditionally, IT has looked at an organization’s attack surface from the inside out, asking questions like, “What are the assets that connect to the wider internet?” and “What are our mean times to detect and respond?”

VMs should be looking from the outside in, asking questions like, “How many unknown assets are connected to my network?” and “What is my mean time to inventory every asset that can put my organization at risk?”

Download this guide to understand how:

• Traditional methods of asset inventory are slow, manual and error-prone
• ASM processes can help reduce a VM’s workload
• To tackle security issues, such as exposed remote access protocols and expired certificates

Create a Collective View of Your Entire Attack Surface

Small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) – organizations with fewer than 1,000 employees – face similar attack surface threats as large organizations. These include ransomware, exposed data service breaches, misconfiguration exposures and more. However, SMBs often don’t have the same resources to resolve these challenges.

Cortex® Xpanse™ Assess allows budget-stretched SMBs to accurately monitor their attack surface and swiftly remediate risks. It reduces resource-intensive tasks so that SecOps can focus on the most critical issues.

Download this white paper to learn how:

• Automated discovery and attribution help security teams get a comprehensive view of their attack surface.
• Xpanse Assess can validate vendor ratings, assess remediation and reduce cyber insurance premiums.
• Red teams and blue teams can use Xpanse Assess to identify their unknown assets during routine perimeter audits.
• Security teams can enable pre-built policies to quickly identify their exposures against the latest CVEs.

Exposed: Is Your Attack Surface Truly Unique?

The Cortex® Xpanse™ research team studied the global attack surface by monitoring scans of 50 million IP addresses associated with 100+ global enterprises and discovered that the more things change, the more they stay the same. For the second year in a row, RDP exposures topped the list of issues facing organizations.

However, we also discovered that organizations face varied threats depending on what they have to protect, whether it is financial data, intellectual property, personal data or even human life.

The biggest threats facing the global attack surface are not making headlines for being the hottest new exploits or brand-new vulnerabilities; they are threats in common protocols and software – simply because security is hard, and mistakes happen.

Knowing the threats, finding them and monitoring for future mistakes can help keep us all safer. Protect yourself with knowledge. Download the “2022 Cortex Xpanse Attack Surface Threat Report” and be prepared.

Closer Look: How to Manage IT Health

IT hygiene is built on the belief that there are ongoing, critical practices instrumental to the health and security of your IT infrastructure. With the global surge of digital transformation, including moves to the cloud and remote work, this becomes more challenging.

In this paper, we’ll define what IT hygiene really means, spotlight the danger of shadow IT and discuss why you need a system of record for all of your internet assets.