Everything You Need To Know About Exposure Management Solutions (FAQs)
What Are Exposure Management Solutions?
Cyber threat exposure, sometimes called to as cyber exposure or cybersecurity exposure, refers to the risk of your sensitive data being compromised or misused.
With the adoption of IoT, OT, and BYOD devices, SaaS applications, and cloud storage in the workplace, alongside the increasing reliance on third-party service providers, organizations are finding themselves exposed to new vulnerabilities, and a bigger attack surface. The best way to deal with this is to identify the top threats facing your business—i.e., the ones most likely to actually happen, and the ones that will cause the most damage if they do happen—and continuously reduce your exposure to those threats.
Exposure management is the practice of addressing exposure to cyberthreats by mapping your organization’s digital attack surface, then taking proactive steps to identify and fix gaps in your security before they can be exploited. By identifying which areas of their IT infrastructure are most exposed to cyberthreats, organizations can determine how they’re most likely to fall victim to a cyberattack and then take steps to alleviate that risk before an attack can occur.
All of this can be very challenging to achieve manually—but that’s where exposure management solutions come in. Exposure management solutions are a type of risk management software that help organizations to identify, assess, and mitigate their risk of exposure to cyberthreats. They provide organizations with clearer visibility into their attack surface, as well as the tools needed to reduce their risk exposure.
How Do Exposure Management Solutions Work?
Exposure management solutions work by aggregating and analyzing data related to different areas of your business operations that bear potential risks, such as financial transactions, supply chain processes, IT security, or regulatory compliance. The tool then uses complex predictive models and simulations to estimate potential losses in various risk scenarios, enabling businesses to better understand their exposure and develop strategies to mitigate these risks.
While the method varies slightly between different solutions, most exposure management platforms achieve this by following these three steps:
1. Identify exposed assets and map the attack surface.
The first step is for the exposure management platform to identify all your assets, including your servers, APIs, endpoints, cloud infrastructure, web and SaaS applications, DNS records, and supply chain and third-party supplier systems. Once it has created an inventory of these assets, the exposure management solution maps your internal and external attack surface, giving you a better understanding of how vulnerable your assets are, and how they could be exploited. In this stage, the solution will identify things such as open ports, publicly accessible services, and operating system and application vulnerabilities.
2. Prioritize exposure management.
Once the attack surface has been mapped, the exposure management solution helps you prioritize your remediation efforts. It does this by providing insights into the level of risk posed by each exposure, i.e., the likelihood that the exposure will lead to a compromise, the potential impact of the compromise, and the sensitivity of data that could be compromised. As part of this, exposure management tools often simulate attacks under real-world conditions to see how your environment would react to them.
This helps you decide which exposures you need to address right away, and which ones can be addressed later on. It also helps you decide which techniques you should use to remediate each exposure.
3. Remediate exposures.
Once you’ve prioritized your exposures and worked out the best way to remediate them, it’s time to actually remove those risks. This might involve patching vulnerabilities, closing unnecessary ports, taking certain assets offline, or changing your access control policies. The best exposure management solutions facilitate this stage, with some even offering automated remediation options, e.g., to fix configuration issues.
It’s important to remember that this is a continuous cycle. Cybercriminals aren’t going to stop trying to find a way into business systems; once one vulnerability is patched, they’ll look for a new way in. So, exposure management and vulnerability remediation are ongoing activities.
What Are The Benefits Of Exposure Management Solutions?
There are a few reasons why you might want to consider implementing an exposure management solution:
- Improve your visibility: Exposure management tools provide a detailed understanding of your attack surface. They aggregate data from across your environment, providing you with a single, unified view of your risk exposure.
- Proactively mitigate risks: With predictive analytics, you can predict future risks and take proactive steps to mitigate them before an attack can take place.
- Ensure compliance: Exposure management tools facilitate compliance with regulatory requirements, helping you avoid data loss, financial loss, and reputational damage.
- Make better decisions: Armed with a clear understanding of potential risks, you can make informed decisions to reduce losses.
- Increase operational efficiency: By identifying and addressing exposures, exposure management solutions can drive operational efficiency, ultimately improving your bottom line.
- Save money: It’s much cheaper to prevent a cyberattack from happening than it is to clean up after you’ve been attacked. By utilizing an exposure management solution, you can close security gaps before an attacker can exploit them.
What Features Should You Look For In An Exposure Management Solution?
There are a few key features you should look out for when comparing exposure management solutions:
- Risk identification and assessment: The solution should be able to identify, assess, and quantify different types of risks, including financial, operational, strategic, and compliance risks.
- Real-time monitoring: Look for a solution that provides real-time monitoring capabilities to track exposures and identify potential risks as they emerge.
- Data aggregation and integration: The solution should aggregate data from various sources, both internal and external, and integrate with other systems (e.g., ERP, CRM, and financial systems) to give you a single, holistic view of your organization’s exposure.
- Scenario analysis: Look for a solution that can simulate different risk scenarios and assess their impact. This will help you formulate response strategies.
- Reporting and analytics: You should be able to automatically generate reports that provide detailed, customizable insights into exposures, risk trends, and potential areas of concern. The best solutions also offer predictive analytics, which uses historical data to predict potential future risks, enabling you to mitigate them proactively.
- Compliance management: The solution should help you monitor and manage compliance with industry standards. This is especially important for organizations operating in highly regulated industries.
- User-friendly interface: You need to make sure that a solution’s interface is intuitive and user-friendly. It should be easy to navigate and operate for users with various levels of technical ability.