In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, security professionals face many challenges in protecting their organizations from cyber threats. One common problem is the persistence of attack surface blind spots, which can be exploited by attackers and prevent an organization’s ability to stay ahead of threats. For businesses that lack the resources or budget for a full-time, in-house security operations center (SOC) or that struggle to recruit and retain skilled staff, these blind spots can be even more challenging to address. Here are three tips to eliminate attack surface blind spots and strengthen your security posture.
1. Expand Visibility Across Your Attack Surface
A common cause of attack surface blind spots is a lack of visibility across an organization’s IT infrastructure. Modern IT environments are diverse and complex, encompassing legacy systems, cloud services, mobile devices, third-party applications, and supply chain touchpoints. Without comprehensive visibility, it’s easy to miss exposures that could lead to significant vulnerabilities.
How to Expand Visibility
- Discover and Categorize Assets: Regularly scanning and monitoring your IT environment with managed vulnerability services paired with managed detection and response (MDR) services ensure new assets are discovered promptly, even as new technology or supply chain touchpoints are added. With these services, you gain comprehensive discovery and categorization of known and unknown assets, applications, and workloads on-premises and in multi-cloud environments for endpoint, OT, IoT, SaaS applications, and other IT infrastructure. With categorization, your data will be enriched with information such as:
- Criticality of asset to the organization/business, location, maintenance
- Asset identity, IT address, asset group • Installed software, services that are running, and file integrity
- Open ports, vulnerabilities, or configuration issues
- Users and IT or regulatory policy violations
- Associated alarms and events
- Fortify Defenses: Using a combination of services, such as MDR with managed endpoint security (MES) and managed vulnerability services significantly expands attack surface visibility. The integration of these services with a centralized technology platform provides a unified view of your attack surface and enriched, extended data collection. You can validate security controls and identify exposures with regular pen testing through managed vulnerability services and complementary consulting services for red/purple team and risk assessments.
- Leverage Continuous Monitoring: Take advantage of managed security services. Managed services teams that work 24/7 in collaboration across multiple integrated platforms can proactively identify, prioritize, and mitigate or remediate exposures and vulnerabilities, as well as detect and investigate evolving and emerging threats more holistically across your attack surface. By expanding visibility, you’ll not only uncover blind spots but also validate security controls and establish a more proactive approach to identifying threats and managing your cyber risk.
2. Address Vulnerability Overload Through Prioritization
Another big challenge for security teams is managing a high volume of vulnerabilities. Without context for prioritization, organizations may be wasting time and resources on vulnerabilities that pose little actual risk while leaving critical exposures unaddressed.
How to Overcome Vulnerability Overload
- Prioritize by Risk and Exploitability: Partner with a security operations team that evaluates vulnerabilities based on their risk of exploitation and potential business impact. For example, LevelBlue integrates threat intelligence and asset criticality into vulnerability assessments to ensure that high-risk issues are addressed first.
- Enable Continuous Feedback Loops: Ensure that vulnerability management teams work closely with SOC analysts and threat hunters to create a dynamic feedback loop. This collaboration allows for proactive improvement in the organization’s security posture.
- Automate and Streamline Remediation: Managed vulnerability services can provide detailed reports, including vulnerability findings, risk ratings, and remediation recommendations. Automated or manual actions can be taken based on predefined SLAs, reducing mean time to remediation (MTTR).
By focusing on exploitable vulnerabilities that pose the highest risks, organizations can make meaningful progress in reducing their attack surface and improving overall security.
3. Utilize Integrated Teams and Technology for Proactive Threat Management
For organizations without a dedicated in-house SOC, integrating expert teams and advanced technology is key to eliminating blind spots and maintaining year-round security.
Why Integrated Teams and Technology Matter
- Access Expert Talent: Utilize specialists like SOC analysts, cybersecurity consultants, endpoint and vulnerability management engineers, and threat intelligence researchers. With expertise ranging from triage and investigation to forensics and recovery, these professionals bring the skills needed to close gaps in your security program.
- Simplify and Accelerate Operations: Instead of building your own SOC, leverage established systems and processes from a trusted partner. Look for managed security service providers that offer rapid onboarding, system setup, and platform fine-tuning to reduce noise from excessive incidents and alarms. This allows your organization to quickly operationalize security measures without the cost and time of in-house development.
- Enhance Incident Response: With MES and MDR services, you may benefit from built-in hours of service for incident response and an option for a zero-dollar retainer. This ensures rapid mitigation and recovery when incidents occur, improving cyber resiliency.
- Deploy Advanced Tools: Integrations with leading endpoint security, vulnerability management, and risk management platforms provide advanced detection, response, and enrichment capabilities. These tools, supported by a continuous threat intelligence feed through a centralized platform, power resiliency in threat detections across your attack surface, even as adversaries change their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).
By integrating skilled teams and advanced technology, you can achieve continuous protection, even as cyber threats evolve and your attack surface grows.
The LevelBlue Advantage
Eliminating attack surface blind spots requires a holistic approach that combines visibility, prioritization, and proactive exposure and threat management. LevelBlue’s integrated services and technology empower organizations to:
- Improve processes for detecting, responding to, and recovering from sophisticated attacks;
- Gain real-time insights into risks and exposures;
- Offload the cost and effort of maintaining in-house security expertise;
- Navigate complex regulatory requirements with ease.
Take the first step toward eliminating attack surface blind spots by partnering with LevelBlue. With year-round, 24/7 continuous monitoring, simplified management, and seamless integration of exposure and threat management services, you’ll be better prepared to secure your organization against today’s most advanced threats.
