External Attack Surface Intelligence (EASI)

External Attack Surface Intelligence (EASI) in cybersecurity refers to the continuous process of discovering, identifying, analyzing, and understanding all an organization's internet-facing assets and resources that are visible and accessible to potential attackers. It goes beyond simple asset inventory and vulnerability scanning to provide a comprehensive and dynamic view of the organization's external attack surface.  

Here's a breakdown of the key elements of EASI:

1. Discovery and Identification:

• Comprehensive Asset Inventory: Identifying all internet-facing assets, including websites, web applications, servers, cloud resources, APIs, IoT devices, and third-party connections. It includes known assets and unknown or "shadow IT" assets that may have been deployed without proper security oversight.  

• Data Collection: Gathering information about each asset, such as domain names, IP addresses, open ports, running services, software versions, and security configurations.  

2. Analysis and Understanding:

• Vulnerability Assessment: Identifying and assessing vulnerabilities in each asset, including known CVEs, misconfigurations, and weaknesses in security controls.  

• Threat Intelligence Integration: Correlating identified vulnerabilities with threat intelligence feeds to understand the likelihood of exploitation and potential impact.  

• Risk Prioritization: Identifying risks based on the severity of vulnerabilities, the attractiveness of assets to attackers, and the potential impact of a successful attack should be prioritized.  

• Contextualization: Providing context to the identified risks by mapping them to business processes, critical data, and compliance requirements.

3. Continuous Monitoring and Management:

• Real-time Monitoring: Continuously monitoring the external attack surface for changes, new vulnerabilities, and emerging threats.  

• Alerting and Reporting: Generating alerts and reports on critical findings, enabling security teams to take proactive action.  

• Remediation and Mitigation: Providing guidance and recommendations for remediating vulnerabilities and mitigating risks.  

Why EASI is Crucial:

• Increased Attack Surface: Organizations' attack surfaces are becoming increasingly complex and dynamic due to cloud adoption, remote work, and the proliferation of IoT devices.  

• Evolving Threat Landscape: Cyber threats constantly evolve, making it challenging to keep up with the latest vulnerabilities and attack techniques.  

• Limited Visibility: Traditional security tools often lack visibility into the entire external attack surface, leaving organizations blind to potential risks.  

EASI provides organizations with the visibility and insights they need to proactively manage their external attack surface, reduce their risk of cyberattacks, and protect their critical assets.   

ThreatNG's comprehensive suite of features makes it a powerful tool for building and maintaining External Attack Surface Intelligence (EASI). Here's how it helps and some examples:

1. Comprehensive Discovery and Asset Identification:

• Domain Intelligence: ThreatNG goes beyond basic domain information by analyzing DNS records, subdomains, certificates, and IP addresses. It helps uncover hidden assets, identify potential vulnerabilities like subdomain takeovers, and map the relationships between different assets.

• Social Media: Analyzing social media posts helps identify official and unofficial accounts, potential phishing attempts, and leaked information.

• Sensitive Code Exposure: ThreatNG scans code repositories and mobile apps to identify exposed secrets, API keys, and other sensitive information that attackers could exploit.

• Search Engine Exploitation: This module helps uncover sensitive data exposed through search engines, including error messages, configuration files, and directory listings.

• Cloud and SaaS Exposure: ThreatNG identifies sanctioned and unsanctioned cloud services, exposed cloud storage buckets, and SaaS implementations. It helps the organization gain visibility into its cloud footprint and identify potential misconfigurations.

• Online Sharing Exposure: By analyzing online code-sharing platforms, ThreatNG can identify sensitive information inadvertently shared by employees.

• Archived Web Pages: Analyzing archived web pages can reveal historical vulnerabilities, outdated software versions, and previously exposed sensitive information.

2. Analysis and Understanding:

• Vulnerability Assessment: ThreatNG combines automated vulnerability scanning with manual analysis to identify and assess various vulnerabilities, including those specific to discovered technologies.

• Threat Intelligence Integration: ThreatNG's intelligence repositories provide context to identified vulnerabilities by correlating them with threat actor activity, exploit availability, and dark web mentions.

• Risk Prioritization: By combining vulnerability data with threat intelligence and business context, ThreatNG helps prioritize remediation efforts based on an attack's likelihood and potential impact.

• Reporting: ThreatNG provides detailed reports on the organization's external attack surface, including visualizations, risk scores, and actionable recommendations.

3. Continuous Monitoring and Management:

• Continuous Monitoring: ThreatNG monitors the external attack surface for changes, new vulnerabilities, and emerging threats.

• Alerting: ThreatNG generates alerts on critical findings, such as new vulnerabilities, exposed credentials, or suspicious activity.

Working with Complementary Solutions:

• Vulnerability Scanners: ThreatNG complements traditional vulnerability scanners by providing deeper analysis, threat intelligence context, and prioritization capabilities.

• SIEM/SOAR: ThreatNG can integrate with SIEM/SOAR platforms to enrich security alerts with external attack surface intelligence and automate incident response.

• Threat Intelligence Platforms (TIPs): ThreatNG can feed data into TIPs to enhance their understanding of the threat landscape and improve threat analysis.

Examples:

• Domain Intelligence: ThreatNG discovers an exposed API endpoint through its analysis of DNS records and identifies that it is vulnerable to a known exploit being used by a specific threat actor group. It allows the organization to prioritize patching this vulnerability.

• Cloud and SaaS Exposure: ThreatNG identifies an open Amazon S3 bucket containing sensitive customer data. This information enables the organization to secure the bucket and prevent data breaches.

• Sensitive Code Exposure: ThreatNG discovers an employee's GitHub repository containing API keys and database credentials. The organization can then revoke the credentials and prevent unauthorized access.

By combining comprehensive discovery, deep analysis, threat intelligence integration, and continuous monitoring, ThreatNG empowers organizations to build and maintain a robust EASI program, proactively managing their external attack surface and reducing their cyber risk.