A Text Sharing Service lets users share and store text documents, notes, or code snippets online. These services often include features for collaboration, version control, and access control. Popular examples include Pastebin, GitHub Gist, and similar platforms.

Staying on top of an organization's and its parties' presence on these platforms is vital for external attack surface management (EASM) and digital risk protection because:

• Sensitive Data Leakage: Text files can contain confidential information like API keys, internal network details, or financial data. Publicly exposed files can lead to unauthorized access, data breaches, and compliance violations.

• Reputational Damage: Leaked internal communications, strategic documents, or negative sentiment can harm an organization's reputation and erode stakeholder trust.

• Phishing and Social Engineering: Attackers can use information from shared text files to craft convincing phishing attacks or social engineering schemes.

• Intellectual Property Theft: Proprietary research, legal documents, or financial reports shared on text-sharing services can be stolen by competitors.

• Third-Party Risk: Employees of partner organizations or contractors might inadvertently expose sensitive data related to your organization. Monitoring their presence on text-sharing services is essential for managing third-party risk.

• Attack Surface Expansion: Every exposed document expands the attack surface, providing attackers additional entry points for reconnaissance or exploitation.

By actively monitoring text-sharing services, organizations can:

• Discover exposed sensitive data: Regularly scan these platforms for sensitive information.

• Identify potentially damaging content: Monitor for leaked internal communications, negative sentiment, or proprietary information.

• Enforce data-sharing policies: Educate employees about secure data-sharing practices and implement policies to prevent accidental exposure.

• Use automated tools: Leverage tools to monitor text-sharing services and identify potential risks continuously.

• Manage third-party access: Extend monitoring and policies to include partners and contractors. 

ThreatNG can effectively help organizations manage the risks associated with text-sharing services through its comprehensive capabilities:

1. External Discovery: ThreatNG automatically discovers an organization's presence on various text-sharing platforms, including Pastebin, GitHub Gist, and others. This discovery process is unauthenticated and external, requiring no internal access or agents. This ensures that even text files shared by employees, partners, or contractors are identified and assessed.

2. External Assessment: ThreatNG's external assessment capabilities evaluate the risks associated with discovered text files.

• Sensitive Code Exposure Module: This investigation module directly addresses the analysis of "Exposed Public Code Repositories uncovering digital risks that include Access Credentials (API Keys, Access Tokens, Generic Credentials, Cloud Credentials, Security Credentials, Other Secrets), Database Exposures (Database Files and Database Credentials), Application Data Exposures, Activity Records, Communication Platform Configurations, Development Environment Configurations, Security Testing Tools, Cloud Service Configurations, Remote Access Credentials, System Utilities, Personal Data, User Activity, and Mobile Apps."

• Online Sharing Exposure Module: This module focuses on identifying and assessing organizational presence within online code-sharing platforms, which would inherently involve analyzing the code repositories for sensitive information exposure.

• Data Leak Susceptibility: ThreatNG combines code secret exposure analysis findings with other intelligence sources, such as dark web presence and domain intelligence, to provide a comprehensive data leak susceptibility rating. This holistic approach helps organizations prioritize and address the most critical risks.

3. Continuous Monitoring: ThreatNG monitors the organization's presence on text-sharing platforms and other external sources for any changes or new exposures. This ensures that new text files containing sensitive information are quickly identified and addressed.

4. Investigation Modules: ThreatNG offers various investigation modules to delve deeper into identified risks.

• Online Sharing Exposure Module: This module provides detailed information about the organization's presence on text-sharing platforms, including the specific text files, their content, and the associated accounts.

• Sensitive Code Exposure Module: This module analyzes the exposed text files for various types of sensitive information, providing a clear breakdown of the potential risks.

• Domain Intelligence, IP Intelligence, and Certificate Intelligence Modules: These modules gather additional context about the text files, such as associated domains, IP addresses, and certificates. This information helps identify the source of the exposure and assess the potential impact.

5. Policy Management: ThreatNG's policy management capabilities enable organizations to define and enforce policies related to text sharing.

• Customizable Risk Configuration and Scoring: Organizations can customize the risk scoring model to align with their risk tolerance and prioritize the most critical exposures.

• Dynamic Entity Management: This allows organizations to define and track any person, place, or entity relevant to their security, including employees, partners, and contractors. This ensures that text files shared by any of these entities are monitored and assessed.

• Exception Management: This provides granular control over what's investigated, allowing organizations to focus on the most relevant risks.

• Pre-built Policy Templates: ThreatNG offers pre-built policy templates to be used as a starting point for text-sharing policies.

6. Intelligence Repositories: ThreatNG's intelligence repositories, including dark web data and compromised credentials, enrich the analysis of exposed text files. For example, if a text file contains a password previously compromised, ThreatNG will flag it as a critical risk.

7. Working with Complementary Solutions: ThreatNG integrates with other security tools, such as security information and event management (SIEM) systems and threat intelligence platforms. This allows organizations to leverage ThreatNG's findings to enhance their security.

Examples of ThreatNG Helping:

• Identifying a leaked API key: ThreatNG discovers a text file on GitHub Gist containing an API key for a critical internal system. The organization can then revoke the key and prevent unauthorized access.

• Preventing reputational damage: ThreatNG identifies a leaked internal communication on Pastebin that contains negative sentiment about a client. The organization can then proactively address the situation before it escalates.

• Enforcing text-sharing policies: ThreatNG's policy management capabilities help an organization implement its text-sharing policies, preventing employees from accidentally exposing sensitive information.

Examples of ThreatNG Working with Complementary Solutions:

• Correlating with SIEM events: ThreatNG's alerts are correlated with SIEM events to provide a more comprehensive view of the security landscape.

Enriching threat intelligence: ThreatNG's intelligence repositories enrich threat intelligence feeds, providing more context about potential threats.