Cybersecurity Management in Threes:
Cybersecurity pitfalls, Components of a Successful Cybersecurity Program, and a Three-step Approach to a Strong Security Posture
As the cybersecurity industry continues to evolve to address more and different threat vectors, the type of solutions needed to effectively secure enterprises are also evolving. While some of these new solutions are intriguing (e.g., machine learning, AI, generative AI, etc.) many are still unproven and require more real-world testing and deployment to become mainstream. While new products and technologies garner a lot of talk and interest, (check out these videos >) there are still some fundamental tools and processes that must be utilized in any enterprise security strategy for risk management.
That brings me to be somewhat retrospective by (re)asking my company ‘why we do what we do’.
Why and how do we at Edgescan follow our unique approach to protecting our customers’ assets?
Let me address these questions using a common format, based on three relevant key points.
Three Cybersecurity Pitfalls:
1 – Vulnerability Scanning Alone is Insufficient
Don’t get me wrong, vulnerability management (VM) is a necessary tool in any enterprise security toolbox BUT, alone, it’s not enough. Testing systems for vulnerabilities is mandatory but realize there may be bugs or weaknesses in both the target system and in the scanner itself, which may result in false negatives and false positives. And I’m sure you can attest to the growing challenge and frustration in chasing down false alarms.
2 – A Siloed Approach to Vulnerability Management Does Not Work
While splitting VM into silos based on network and application vulnerability intelligence may be convenient for some enterprise security teams, it is not a logical or efficient approach in the end. Foremost, effective enterprise cybersecurity management requires full stack visibility because hackers will use any and all attack vectors to penetrate your organization. Hackers really don’t care where in the stack a vulnerability is if they breach successfully.
Uncovering blind spots and understanding their associated risk based upon business context, as well as maintaining a thorough knowledge of your evolving attack surface is imperative to a solid cyber security program.
Undoubtedly, receiving feeds of accurate and triaged vulnerability intelligence expedites decision-making and, ultimately, vulnerability mitigation. Prioritization is simplified by answering questions like “Which vulnerabilities should we fix now?” Our “noise suppression” capability provides custom risk ratings & breach predictability and eliminates false positives to help organizations be faster and more effective.
3 – Traditional Penetration Testing is Antiquated
Traditional penetration testing is not scalable and it is expensive, slow, requires contracts, and results in a ‘clunky’ PDF report as the primary output. I could elaborate, but I think you get – and know – the point.
Three Components of a Successful Cybersecurity Program
1 – Third-party Tool Integration is Essential
Edgescan provides an extensible platform that integrates into numerous third-party tools like Vulnerability Management scanners, ticketing systems, reporting applications, GRC tools, and more for complete visibility and monitoring. Supplying these tools with validated, accurate vulnerability data on demand and over time is tremendously beneficial to SecOps and DevOps teams alike for auditing and trend analysis.
You can also sync IP and hostnames from your cloud environment and the platform will auto-enroll addresses for EASM (External Attack Surface Management), vulnerability management or penetration testing as a service (PTaaS) – we call this “Cloudhook.” Cloudhook is Edgescan’s native cloud plugin which keeps pace with the constant state of flux associated with cloud-based deployments.
2 – Adjacent Technologies as Part of an Effective Security Strategy
The Edgescan Platform goes far beyond vulnerability management (VM) and penetration testing to include application, web application, and API security, as well as external attack surface management (EASM) capabilities. Following our key philosophy of “you can’t secure what you can’t see” in pursuit of providing continuous assessment and resilience, we offer multiple tools to secure the systems and applications being used in enterprises today, as well as addressing how to best identify and mitigate evolving threat vectors. I recommend assessing how effective your current tools are at sharing vulnerability intelligence data to ‘see and secure’ your own infrastructure.
3 – Expert Technical Support is Mandatory
We don’t expect our clients to be cyber security management experts, so everyone in the Edgescan support team is a seasoned security expert and penetration tester. And, in order to understand and have a comprehensive view of our systems and workflows, each security analyst periodically rotates between Edgescan support and consultancy, advisory, and software security departments. Our security pros also carry a range of industry credentials including CREST, OSCP and CEH certifications. This ensures our “human element” is as knowledgeable and effective in understanding and securing your organization.
The Edgescan Three-step Approach to Effective Cybersecurity Management
Step 1. External Attack Surface Management (EASM)
A Strong Security Posture Begins with Knowing Your Attack Surface
Issues revealed: What is exposed? What can be potentially hacked?
The first step in achieving a strong security posture is to accurately map, measure, then inventory your entire attack surface, including cloud services, hosts, network devices, web apps, APIs and more – you simply can’t secure what you can’t measure or see. Edgescan’s External Attack Surface Management (EASM) provides immediate visibility of an enterprise’s internet-facing estate and then continuously monitors the attack surface as it evolves and changes. It provides complete visibility and the flexibility for organizations to modify their change and deployment models whenever needed. With EASM you’ll discover and inventory subdomains and find related or obfuscated records that may direct an attacker to your internet footprint. Edgescan’s EASM also includes continuous profiling and API discovery, a unique way to detect shadow APIs in real-time, limiting cyber threats
Step 2. Risk-based Vulnerability Management
Go Beyond “Just Discovering” Vulnerabilities
Issues revealed: What weaknesses and exposures do we have? What level of threat are they to the business?
Once you have scoured your attack surface for weakness you need to continuously monitor and detect all vulnerabilities and exposures across the full stack with high accuracy (Validation is King). Then rank the vulnerabilities by business concerns and tightly integrate with support operations to ensure timely remediation on what matters most.
Accurate Vulnerability Intelligence: Edgescan provides a hybrid approach to VM (analyst firms are calling it risk-based vulnerability management or RBVM) using a combination of automation to discover most vulnerabilities at scale, and cyber analytics coupled with human intervention to validate and triage unknown or more complex vulnerabilities. Our goal is to ensure we have no false positives and that discovered issues are risk rated.
Full-stack Coverage: The human element of the Edgescan solution ensures assessments are getting the coverage they need, and clients will not receive false positive alerts. As 100% coverage in system and software testing is extremely hard to achieve due to following countless logical flows of code in applications, the challenge increases as different technologies exist that require different types of automation, whether they are APIs, JavaScript-heavy frameworks, cloud apps, or generic n-tier applications.
Step 3. Penetration Testing as a Service
Unique hybrid approach that delivers verified Risk-rated Results
Issues revealed: How can a skilled attacker penetrate your environment?
Now that your security team is armed with EASM and RBVM intelligence, perform laser-focused resilience tests on 1) areas of concern; 2) complex areas not suited for automated scanning.
Edgescan delivers Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS) to help organizations better manage risk, mitigate data breaches, maintain compliance, and increase safe business continuity. Our PTaaS utilizes the same user interface as our RBVM solution as well as using the same intelligence data. This integrated solution provides the ability to easily retest mitigated vulnerabilities on demand or via automation, while not waiting on a consultant to execute any tests. Our PTaaS experts are OSCP, CEH & CREST certified and deliver the rigor expected of any leading penetration test.
PTaaS focuses on testing sensitive areas of an asset for vulnerabilities that cannot be uncovered through traditional vulnerability scanning & automation alone. This hybrid process of automation and combined human intelligence is what differentiates us from scanning tools and legacy services providing real and actionable results.
I encourage you to also be retrospective and reconsider the effectiveness of your organization’s security tools in protecting your critical assets and data. Perhaps you can also take three steps to better fortify your own organization.
To better understand how Edgescan can help protect your environment contact, click here.