With the ever-changing nature of cybersecurity threats due to the adoption of cloud computing, remote working, and IoT devices, businesses have become vulnerable to attacks in different angles, and it becomes harder for organizations to pinpoint all potential security threats before hackers do. The two most important cybersecurity activities that will mitigate such risks are attack surface management (ASM) and dark web monitoring.
Definition of Attack Surface Management
Attack Surface Management (ASM) is the practice of identifying, evaluating, monitoring, and reducing all digital attack surface assets that may become a target for cyber attacks. This may include websites, cloud applications, APIs, servers, endpoints, and third parties. With the expansion of a company’s digital footprint, its exposure grows bigger. ASM allows seeing those assets, which can help security experts identify vulnerable systems, outdated software, and incorrectly configured systems that may be exploited by hackers.
Benefits of Attack Surface Management
The main advantage of using ASM is the proactive way of dealing with cybersecurity rather than the reactive one. It allows finding vulnerabilities, prioritizing risks, and making recommendations on how to deal with them constantly. Thus, it helps prevent ransomware, phishing, credential theft, and any other kind of unauthorized access to the company’s information. Moreover, ASM helps with staying compliant with industry standards by keeping the list of digital assets updated.
Importance of Attack Surface Management
Cyberattacks of today usually begin from exposing internet-facing systems that are overlooked and inadequately secured. Through Attack Surface Management, security professionals can identify such vulnerabilities before they can be discovered by attackers. Visibility provides the ability to discover exposed databases, vulnerable applications, unprotected cloud storage, and expired security certificates. The probability of being attacked decreases drastically because of early detection while business disruption is reduced as well.
What do you mean by Dark Web Monitoring?
Dark web refers to those websites that hide from view of regular web browsers. It is the place where criminals trade such sensitive information as stolen credentials, finances, intellectual property and company data. Dark Web Monitoring involves scanning underground forums, marketplaces, and data leaks websites in search of any mentions of a business. Security professionals will immediately know about exposed credentials of employees, customer information and confidential business data.
Advantages of Dark Web Monitoring
- Early Discovery of Data Breaches
With the help of Dark Web Monitoring, an organization becomes aware of any breached data before the same is revealed to the public. A majority of organizations find out about data breaches through dark web monitoring instead of their own research. They can force users to change their passwords and add more security controls as a result of early detection of the breach.
- Help in Responding to Incidents
Dark Web Monitoring gives an organization intelligence regarding any attacks on them through the internet. The organization gets to know about any attack campaigns, any breached credentials, ransomware groups, and threats targeting their business sector.
Conclusion:
Whereas Attack Surface Management helps in pinpointing and protecting external assets, Dark Web Monitoring ensures any stolen information is detected on the dark web. It is through this combined use of Attack Surface Management and Dark Web Monitoring that companies can build a holistic approach to their cybersecurity that covers both aspects of external exposure and stolen data.