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In the modern world of the business environment, organisations face a lot of pressure to adopt digital technology to stay competitive in the market. Even if these technologies have undoubted benefits for organisations, they also increase their potential attack surface and lay them bare to increased levels of cyber risk.

 

What is attack surface management?

If left unaddressed that the above risks can create critical security loopholes that can be easily exploited by cybercriminals which are called attack surface management.

 

It involves continuously identifying, classifying, and monitoring digital assets that incorporate or send vital data between networks. It helps the organisation to address and identify the vulnerabilities with the ongoing analysis of network systems.

 

 

One can understand the attack surface by visualising the enterprise’s vulnerabilities by mapping out all the paths and directions.

 

How often does it occur?

Cyber attacks almost hit the business every day. There are two types of company: known ones and the one that doesn't know.

 

The known ones are the companies that are certain that the business has been hacked. Unknown ones are the companies that have no idea that the company is hacked. A survey states that the total volume of the attacks has increased in the last few years.

 

Common types of cyber attacks

Malware

It is a term used to describe spiteful software, viruses, and worms. It breaches into a network system through vulnerability typically when a user clicks on a link that then installs a risky software.

 

It can install additional harmful software. It causes confusion among the components of the network systems and makes them inoperable.

Phishing

It is the practice of sending false information or communications that appear to arrive from a reputable source. Its motto is to get information about the user's credit card details, login id, and personal information or to install harmful applications.

SQL injection   

Structured Query Language (SQL) injection mostly occurs when a hacker infixes a malicious code into a server that uses SQL which forces the server to reveal information that does not happen in normal cases.

 

An attacker could simply carry out a SQL injection just by capitulating the malicious code into a vulnerable website search box.

DNS tunneling

It uses DNS protocol to communicate to non- DNS traffic. It works by sending HTTP and other protocol traffic over DNS.  There are many other ways to make use of DNS Tunnelling and Man in the middle attack.

 

This happens when the attackers insert themselves into a two-party transaction. The two common ways are :

 

• By using a public Wifi.
• By breaching a device.

 

Components of the attack surface management system

 

The important step is to analyse and identify all the internet-facing assets. Once it is recorded, you need to classify the assets on the basis of risks that can be possibly caused to your business.

 

You can continuously monitor the health of the network systems and their ecosystem by enabling security ratings. With the help of security ratings, you can easily identify the risks which may occur when you are dealing with a third party.

 

 

Dividing the networks into segments helps the network administrator to control the traffic and helps to find threats. Not only this, but attack surface management also adds up a layer of additional security to the network.

 

You can also visit cyber threat intelligence. They help to monitor the attacks and ensure an adequate level of security.

 

How can you reduce the risk of your attack surface?

 

One of the most effective ways to reduce the risk of attack surface is to put an end to convolution. It is the end result of defective policy management and insufficient information. It hikes up the possibility of risk and human error.

 

By visualising the vulnerabilities, one could identify how a hacker can reach weak spots. Attack simulation reveals how attackers can move along the network systems and utilise the vulnerabilities.

 

There are three methods that are extremely effective to reduce the possibility of risk: Quantitative risk scores, Security configuration assessments, and traffic flow analysis.

 

You can reduce the risk by reducing the amount of code running and entry points available to untrusted users and eliminating the services requested by relatively few users. By having less code available to unauthorised users, there will tend to be fewer failures. By turning off the functions that are not necessary, there are fewer security risks.

 

Though attack surface reduction helps in preventing security failures, it cannot alleviate the amount of damage an attacker could cause once a vulnerability is found in the network systems.