Continuous Session Monitoring
Continuous session monitoring is a cybersecurity practice involving ongoing surveillance and analysis of active user sessions within a system or application. Instead of just verifying a user's identity at the beginning of a session, continuous monitoring tracks their actions and behavior throughout the entire session.
Here's a breakdown of what it entails:
Real-time Tracking: This involves monitoring user activity in real time, including every action, transaction, and data access.
Behavioral Analysis: Continuous monitoring often analyzes user behavior to establish a "normal" activity baseline. Deviations from this baseline can signal suspicious behavior.
Contextual Awareness: It considers various contextual factors, such as the user's location, device, time of day, and network, to provide a complete picture of the session.
Threat Detection: The primary goal is to detect and respond to threats like session hijacking, account takeover, insider threats, and other malicious activities as they occur.
Automated Response: In many cases, continuous session monitoring systems can automatically trigger alerts or take actions, such as terminating a session or requiring re-authentication, when suspicious activity is detected.
By consistently scrutinizing user sessions, organizations can significantly improve their ability to detect and prevent cyberattacks, protect sensitive data, and maintain the integrity of their systems.
Here’s how ThreatNG can contribute to continuous session monitoring:
Here's how ThreatNG plays a vital role:
ThreatNG's external discovery is its foundation. Identifying all external-facing web applications, APIs, and access points defines the perimeter where sessions originate, which is essential for understanding the potential attack surface for session-based attacks.
For example, ThreatNG's discovery of exposed APIs is critical because APIs are often targeted for session hijacking.
ThreatNG's external assessment capabilities provide valuable context for session security.
The Web Application Hijack Susceptibility rating helps prioritize applications most vulnerable to session-based attacks. This allows security teams to focus their continuous monitoring efforts where needed.
The assessment of Subdomain Takeover Susceptibility is also relevant. By identifying subdomains that could be taken over, ThreatNG helps prevent attackers from using those subdomains to launch session hijacking attacks or steal session credentials.
Furthermore, ThreatNG's Cyber Risk Exposure assessment reveals potential weaknesses in web infrastructure, such as exposed ports or vulnerable services, that could be exploited to intercept or manipulate sessions.
ThreatNG's reporting capabilities ensure that security teams and stakeholders are informed about session-related risks.
Technical reports provide detailed findings on vulnerabilities that could lead to session hijacking, enabling security teams to implement appropriate monitoring and controls.
Security ratings offer a clear metric for tracking improvements in session security over time.
ThreatNG's continuous monitoring of the external attack surface is highly beneficial. It updates organizations on any session security changes, such as new subdomains, exposed services, or vulnerabilities in external-facing applications.
This proactive approach ensures continuous session monitoring strategies are always aligned with the latest external threat landscape.
ThreatNG's investigation modules provide valuable tools for analyzing potential session-related risks:
Domain Intelligence offers detailed information about an organization's web infrastructure, helping security teams understand how attackers might target sessions.
The Sensitive Code Exposure module detects leaked credentials or API keys in code repositories. Because these leaks can bypass session monitoring controls, it is essential to identify and remediate them.
The Search Engine Exploitation module helps identify information leakage through search engines, which could provide attackers with valuable data for planning session hijacking attacks.
ThreatNG's intelligence repositories provide crucial context for continuous session monitoring:
The Dark Web Presence repository alerts organizations to compromised credentials that could be used to bypass authentication and hijack sessions. This information can be fed into continuous session monitoring systems to detect suspicious logins.
The repository of Known Vulnerabilities helps security teams prioritize monitoring efforts by highlighting vulnerabilities actively exploited in session-based attacks.
Working with Complementary Solutions:
ThreatNG's external insights complement internal continuous session monitoring solutions:
ThreatNG's identification of vulnerable web applications and APIs can inform the rules and configurations of Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) and Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), enhancing their ability to detect and block session hijacking attempts.
ThreatNG's data on compromised credentials can be integrated with User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) systems to improve the detection of account takeover and other session-based attacks.
Examples of ThreatNG Helping:
ThreatNG can discover a forgotten subdomain with weak session management, prompting security teams to include it in their continuous monitoring strategy.
ThreatNG can identify leaked API keys that could be used to bypass standard authentication, triggering alerts in a SIEM and leading to enhanced session scrutiny.
Examples of ThreatNG Working with Complementary Solutions:
ThreatNG's vulnerability data can be used to tune a WAF to more aggressively monitor sessions interacting with a vulnerable application.
ThreatNG's compromised credential data can be fed into a UEBA to flag sessions where those credentials are used, even from seemingly normal locations.
ThreatNG essentially strengthens an organization's overall session security posture by providing essential external visibility, assessment, and threat intelligence that informs and enhances continuous monitoring efforts.
