Attack Path
In cybersecurity, an Attack Path is the specific, step-by-step route a threat actor takes to exploit a series of vulnerabilities and move through an IT environment to reach a high-value target. While a digital risk pathway focuses on the broad journey from the external web to the organization, an attack path is a granular map of technical movements, such as privilege escalation and lateral movement, within the network.
What is an Attack Path?
An attack path represents the visual and logical connection between a starting point—such as an exposed workstation—and a critical asset, such as a database containing sensitive customer information. Unlike a single vulnerability, an attack path highlights how multiple, seemingly minor weaknesses can be chained together to achieve a catastrophic breach.
The Stages of a Typical Attack Path
Security professionals use the concept of an attack path to understand the lifecycle of an intrusion. Most paths follow a predictable progression:
1. Initial Access
The path begins when an attacker gains a foothold in the environment. This is often achieved through:
Phishing emails that harvest user credentials.
Exploiting a known vulnerability on a public-facing server.
Using compromised remote access tools like RDP or VPNs.
2. Foothold and Persistence
Once inside, the attacker establishes a reliable means of staying in the system. They may install a "backdoor" or create a new administrative user account. This ensures that even if the initial entry point is closed, the attack path remains open.
3. Lateral Movement
In this stage, the attacker moves from the initially compromised system to other systems within the network. They use various techniques to navigate the internal environment, such as:
Harvesting local passwords or session tokens.
Scanning the internal network for unpatched servers.
Exploiting trust relationships between different departments or domains.
4. Privilege Escalation
To reach the ultimate target, attackers often need higher levels of access. They seek to move from a standard user account to a "Superuser" or "Domain Admin" status. This allows them to bypass security controls and access restricted data silos.
5. Objective Completion
The end of the attack path is the realization of the attacker's goal. This typically involves:
Data exfiltration (stealing sensitive files).
Ransomware deployment (encrypting files for payment).
Long-term espionage or system sabotage.
Why Attack Path Analysis is Essential
Traditional security often focuses on patching individual vulnerabilities. However, Attack Path Analysis shifts the focus to the relationships between assets.
Identifying "Choke Points": By mapping paths, organizations can find specific assets that appear in multiple attack routes. Securing these "choke points" provides the highest return on security investment.
Contextual Risk: A vulnerability on a server that has no path to sensitive data is less critical than a minor vulnerability on a server that sits directly on an attack path to the core database.
Breaking the Chain: Understanding the path allows defenders to implement "circuit breakers," such as network segmentation, which stop an attacker from moving laterally even if they gain initial access.
Common Questions About Attack Paths
How does an attack path differ from an attack surface?
The attack surface is the total sum of all possible entry points (the "what" and "where"). An attack path is the actual sequence of movements an attacker takes through those points to reach a goal (the "how").
What is Attack Path Management (APM)?
Attack Path Management is the continuous process of discovering, mapping, and remediating potential routes an attacker could take. It uses automation to simulate millions of possible paths to find the ones most likely to be exploited.
Can network segmentation stop an attack path?
Yes. Network segmentation acts as a structural barrier. By dividing a network into smaller, isolated zones, you limit the attacker’s ability to move laterally, effectively cutting the attack path short before they reach critical assets.
To secure and break a digital risk pathway or attack path, organizations must gain complete visibility into their external environment. ThreatNG provides this visibility through a proactive, "attacker-centric" approach. By discovering and assessing assets from the outside in, ThreatNG identifies the individual links in an attack chain before they can be exploited.
External Discovery and Attack Surface Mapping
ThreatNG begins by identifying the "starting points" of potential attack paths. Unlike tools that require manual input of IP addresses, ThreatNG uses unauthenticated discovery to find assets that an organization may not know it owns.
Shadow IT and Orphaned Assets: ThreatNG identifies forgotten subdomains, old development environments, and unauthorized cloud instances.
Infrastructure Footprinting: It maps internet-facing servers, web applications, and APIs.
Cloud and SaaS Detection: The platform finds open storage buckets and unsanctioned SaaS applications that could serve as entry points for data exfiltration.
External Assessment with Detailed Examples
Once discovered, ThreatNG conducts a deep-dive assessment to determine the technical and reputational risk of each asset. This is critical for understanding the "vulnerability chaining" that creates an attack path.
Subdomain Takeover Susceptibility: ThreatNG analyzes DNS records and SSL statuses. For example, it might find a subdomain pointing to a defunct cloud provider; an attacker could claim that provider’s resources to host a malicious site under your trusted brand.
Technology Stack Analysis: It identifies the software versions powering your web servers. For instance, if ThreatNG detects an outdated version of WordPress on a marketing microsite, it flags this as a weak link that could lead to a web application hijack.
Email and Domain Permutations: ThreatNG scans for "lookalike" domains used in phishing. An assessment might reveal that
example-security.comwas recently registered by a third party, signaling a likely phishing path targeting your employees.
Investigation Modules and Granular Analysis
ThreatNG’s investigation modules allow analysts to pivot from a general alert to a deep forensic investigation, providing the context needed to break a complex attack path.
Sensitive Code Exposure Module: This module scans public repositories, such as GitHub, for leaked secrets. For example, if a developer accidentally commits an AWS API key, ThreatNG identifies the exposure immediately, allowing you to revoke the key before an attacker uses it to move from the web to your cloud infrastructure.
Dark Web Presence Module: It monitors underground forums for mentions of your brand or leaked credentials. If a set of executive credentials appears on a dark web marketplace, this module identifies the risk, helping you break the "Account Takeover" path.
Search Engine Exploitation: This module assesses which sensitive information search engines index. An example would be finding an exposed
.envfile or a directory of "privileged" documents that are publicly accessible but shouldn't be.
Intelligence Repositories and Historical Context
ThreatNG maintains extensive intelligence repositories containing data on ransomware groups, global vulnerabilities, and compromised credentials. This historical and international context helps security teams understand the "who" and "how" behind a potential attack path. By comparing your external footprint against these repositories, ThreatNG can predict if your current exposures match the specific tactics used by active ransomware gangs.
Reporting and Strategic Communication
ThreatNG translates complex technical findings into actionable business intelligence through several reporting tiers:
Technical Workbooks: Detailed lists of vulnerabilities with remediation steps for IT teams.
Prioritized Risk Reports: Highlighting the "High" risk findings that represent the most likely attack paths.
Executive Dashboards: Providing a high-level "Security Rating" that demonstrates the organization's overall risk posture to stakeholders.
Continuous Monitoring and Complementary Solutions
ThreatNG provides continuous monitoring, detecting new assets or vulnerabilities in real time. To fully break an attack path, ThreatNG works in tandem with complementary solutions to turn external intelligence into internal action.
Complementary SIEM and SOAR Solutions: ThreatNG feeds external threat data into SIEM platforms. If ThreatNG detects a new malicious IP targeting your brand, a SOAR platform can use that data to automatically update firewall rules to block the connection.
Complementary Vulnerability Management: While internal scanners focus on known systems, ThreatNG provides the "external list" of unknown assets. This ensures your vulnerability management team is patching 100% of the attack surface.
Complementary IAM Solutions: When ThreatNG identifies leaked credentials on the dark web, it can trigger an Identity and Access Management (IAM) system to enforce an immediate password reset or require Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for the affected user.
Common Questions About ThreatNG and Attack Paths
How does ThreatNG help prioritize which vulnerabilities to patch first?
ThreatNG prioritizes risks based on their role in an attack path. A "Low" severity vulnerability on a server that has a direct path to sensitive data is prioritized higher than a "High" severity vulnerability on an isolated, non-critical asset.
Does ThreatNG require agents or internal access?
No. ThreatNG performs purely external, unauthenticated discovery. It views your organization exactly how an attacker would during the reconnaissance phase, requiring no connectors or internal software installations.
Can ThreatNG detect supply chain risks?
Yes. You can use ThreatNG to monitor the external attack surface of your third-party vendors, enabling you to identify and disrupt attack paths originating outside your direct control.
To secure an organization's high-value assets, cybersecurity professionals must identify and dismantle the specific sequences attackers follow. ThreatNG, through its DarChain (Digital Attack Risk Contextual Hyper-Analysis Insights Narrative) capability, provides a unique "outside-in" perspective that maps these sequences by chaining fragmented external findings into a cohesive adversarial story.
By shifting from isolated vulnerability scanning to contextual hyper-analysis, ThreatNG reveals the most likely paths an adversary would take to reach a critical breach.
External Discovery and Attack Path Initiation
The attack path begins with reconnaissance. ThreatNG automates this phase by discovering an organization’s entire external digital footprint, identifying the "starting nodes" of potential attack paths.
Subdomain and Shadow IT Identification: It uncovers forgotten subdomains or temporary cloud instances that lack corporate security controls.
Asset Attribution: ThreatNG identifies digital assets legitimately associated with the organization, ensuring that the attack path mapping includes all authorized and unauthorized external entry points.
Third-Party Connections: It maps dependencies on external vendors, identifying paths that could originate from a supply chain partner and move toward the primary organization.
External Assessment: Chaining Vulnerabilities
Once assets are discovered, ThreatNG performs an external assessment to identify "toxic combinations"—seemingly minor issues that, when chained together, form a viable attack path.
Detailed Examples of External Assessment
Abandoned Service Claiming: ThreatNG identifies CNAME records pointing to abandoned services. An attacker could claim this service name, allowing them to host malicious content or credential-harvesting pages on a trusted corporate subdomain, initiating a path toward employee account takeover.
BEC and Phishing Susceptibility: The platform evaluates susceptibility to Business Email Compromise (BEC) by chaining registered lookalike domains with active Mail (MX) records. For example, if an attacker registers a typosquatted domain and activates email infrastructure, they can launch targeted phishing attacks. ThreatNG identifies this setup as a pre-attack signal.
Exposed Administrative Panels: An assessment may reveal an unencrypted login portal on a development server. When combined with compromised credentials found on the dark web, this creates a direct path for an attacker to gain an initial foothold.
Investigation Modules for Deep-Dive Context
ThreatNG uses specialized investigation modules to provide granular insights into specific attack vectors, helping analysts validate the risk of an identified path.
Detailed Examples of Investigation Modules
Sensitive Code Exposure: This module scans public code repositories for leaked API keys or access tokens. For example, if a developer accidentally commits a cloud credential to GitHub, ThreatNG identifies the specific cloud environment it accesses, mapping the path from the public web to internal data stores.
Cloud and SaaS Exposure: It identifies misconfigured cloud storage, such as open S3 buckets. An investigation might reveal that an open bucket contains configuration files that disclose the internal network architecture, providing an attacker with a roadmap for lateral movement.
Dark Web Monitoring: This module tracks mentions of the organization and compromised credentials. By finding an administrator's credentials in a recent breach dump, ThreatNG identifies a high-probability path for privilege escalation before the attacker even attempts a login.
Intelligence Repositories and Historical Context
ThreatNG leverages vast intelligence repositories to add depth to attack path analysis. These repositories include data on dark web activity, ransomware groups, and known vulnerabilities. By correlating an external vulnerability with the known tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of a specific ransomware group, ThreatNG helps organizations prioritize the paths most likely to be used by active threat actors.
Reporting and Continuous Monitoring
To maintain a proactive defense, ThreatNG provides:
Continuous Monitoring: It alerts security teams the moment a new vulnerability appears or a lookalike domain is registered, ensuring the map of potential attack paths is always up to date.
Actionable Reporting: ThreatNG generates technical workbooks and ransomware susceptibility reports that explain not just what is vulnerable, but how that vulnerability fits into a larger attack narrative.
Cooperation with Complementary Solutions
ThreatNG provides the external intelligence that triggers and enriches the workflows of internal security tools. By working with complementary solutions, organizations can automatically break the chains identified by DarChain.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM): ThreatNG routes external signals, such as a validated subdomain takeover, into a SIEM. This allows the security operations center to correlate external reconnaissance with internal logs, identifying the start of a multi-stage attack.
Identity and Access Management (IAM): When ThreatNG uncovers compromised administrative credentials in its repositories, this intelligence is used by IAM platforms to trigger immediate password resets and enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA).
Next-Generation Firewalls and WAFs: Identified technical gaps, such as open database ports or unprotected APIs, are sent to firewalls to implement virtual patching, effectively closing the external entry point of an attack path.
SOAR and Automation: High-fidelity alerts from ThreatNG trigger automated playbooks. For example, if ThreatNG identifies an exposed cloud bucket, a SOAR tool can automatically initiate an internal inspection to verify permissions and classify the data at risk.
Common Questions About DarChain and Attack Paths
How does DarChain differ from standard vulnerability scanning?
Standard scanning identifies isolated flaws. DarChain uses contextual hyper-analysis to chain together those flaws, showing the actual "narrative" of how an attacker would exploit multiple vulnerabilities to achieve a breach.
Can ThreatNG find attack paths through third-party vendors?
Yes. By assessing a vendor's external footprint, ThreatNG can determine whether the vendor has exposed credentials or misconfigured assets that could serve as a gateway into your environment.
Why is external discovery important for internal attack paths?
Most internal attack paths begin with an external entry point. By using ThreatNG to discover and secure the "outside-in" view, you prevent the attacker from ever gaining the foothold needed to begin lateral movement.
