What is attack surface management?
Attack surface management (ASM) is the process of managing all your internet-connected assets to identify and prevent potential risks. By monitoring your external assets for exposure, it helps your company address vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. With NordStellar, you can easily find weaknesses in your systems and prevent a number of cyber threats.
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How does NordStellar’s attack surface management work?
ASM is a multi-stage process spanning from the identification of weaknesses to constant monitoring. NordStellar covers each step to ensure your systems are protected:
Identification
To help you gather the information, NordStellar implements Automatic Asset Discovery. By utilizing various techniques such as DNS enumeration, web crawling, and other OSINT techniques, it identifies all internet-exposed assets associated with the organization.
Analysis
NordStellar helps analyze your assets for potential vulnerabilities. For example, it scans the discovered assets for known vulnerabilities using passive service fingerprinting.
Assessment
NordStellar helps you understand various threats better by prioritizing and evaluating them according to their severity, exploitability, and potential impact.
Remediation
This stage is all about plugging the gaps in your security. For example, NordStellar provides real-time alerts and comprehensive reports about new vulnerabilities and changes to the attack surface of your organization.
What are the benefits of attack surface management?
The main benefit of attack surface management is identifying weaknesses and systematically reducing risks. Once you find and eliminate unnecessary assets, you can start prioritizing potential threats based on severity or potential impact on your company.
But NordStellar offers so much more. Not only does it help you identify vulnerabilities and proactively address security gaps, but also lets you save on costs, meet regulatory requirements, and increase operational efficiency by automating ASM tasks.
Explore more security solutions from NordStellar
NordStellar lets your cybersecurity team patch critical vulnerabilities and intervene at the earliest stages of an attack – before any real damage is done.
Dark web monitoring
Dark web monitoring allows you to track all keywords associated with your business across deep and dark web communities, such as hacker forums, illicit marketplaces, and Telegram channels. It helps you uncover brand mentions, issues with vendors, and leaked information about your VIP personnel.
Data breach monitoring
Data breach monitoring involves scanning the deep and dark web for leaked sensitive information linked to your business. To spot breached data, NordStellar checks infostealer logs, leaked databases, and collections of stolen credentials combinations. This solution provides real-time monitoring and the full context of past and present attacks.
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Frequently asked questions
An attack surface is the total number of entry points to your system that can be exploited. An entry point includes hardware, software, and cloud infrastructure, but you should also account for human error and physical social engineering tactics.
Attack surface management helps you understand your vulnerabilities and plug the gaps in your systems before they can be exploited by cybercriminals. An organization’s attack surface can be extremely broad, including legacy assets, security gaps in the supply chain, and industry-wide vulnerabilities. ASM helps you uncover unknown risks and protect your organization, partners, and clients.
NordStellar uses proprietary domain enumeration technologies to find weaknesses in your external attack surface. For example, scanning public websites and the dark web helps it discover mentions of your business in hacker forums and identify potentially compromised spots.
NordStellar can detect various types of security issues:
- Open ports
- Exposed services
- Misconfigured services
- Outdated software
- Unsupported devices
- Shadow infrastructure
Yes, ASM can cover all your internal and external assets, including cloud environments. However, NordStellar does not cover cloud environments at this point.
Compliance with privacy laws such as GDPR and HIPAA often depends on proper data storage and protection procedures. As ASM aims to plug gaps in your security, it can greatly help comply with regional privacy laws as well as global standards and regulations like ISO 27001, NIS2, and DORA.
Choosing the best attack surface management solution comes down to evaluating your company’s specific needs. Consider the size of your infrastructure, the sensitivity of your data, and the complexity of your external assets.
Ultimately, ASM is a continuous process, so it’s important to find a reputable company you can collaborate with for years to come. One such company is NordStellar. As part of Nord Security, NordStellar offers years of cybersecurity expertise, modern tools for proactive threat detection, and advanced attack surface monitoring.