What is Attack Surface Management?

The expansion of company assets has become a double-edged sword. As businesses expand and assets multiply rapidly, visibility into the organization's attack surface diminishes, allowing unknown threats to lurk undetected. Organizations have experienced a 133% year-over-year growth in cyber assets. Meanwhile, unresolved security vulnerabilities have increased by a staggering 589% in 2023. Asset expansion is necessary for business growth, and the alarming increase in cyber risk is an unavoidable consequence of this expansion.

Securing every asset, from IoT sensors to networks, applications, users, cloud services, and connected devices, is a critical concern that only attack surface management can help solve. 



What is an attack surface?

An attack surface is all the vulnerabilities or entry points within a system, network, or organization that malicious actors could exploit to gain unauthorized access, disrupt operations, or steal sensitive information. Common threats in cloud application security, such as DDoS attacks, misconfigurations, or zero-day exploits, are all security weaknesses that stem from insecure assets within your attack surface.  

The entry points within the attack surface (also called attack vectors) include known, unknown, and rogue assets. Known assets are officially recognized components like servers, databases, applications, and user accounts. Unknown assets, such as forgotten or unpatched systems and legacy applications, have been forgotten or overlooked. Lastly, rogue assets represent compromised accounts or unauthorized devices, like shadow IT, which were introduced without official approval. Every additional application or service integrated from a third party further expands the attack surface.



How does attack surface management work?

Attack surface management (ASM) involves systematically identifying, assessing, and mitigating vulnerabilities within an organization's systems, networks, and assets. It begins with asset discovery – where all components and resources within the infrastructure are cataloged and assessed for potential vulnerabilities. 

ASM is a vital part of your broader Application Security Posture Management (ASPM) strategy, which ensures continuous security across your application via various checks. These checks test your application for vulnerabilities and the efficacy of your security protocols and compliance measures. 

Creating and maintaining a comprehensive Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) can help you during this phase. SBOMs list all software components, such as open-source and proprietary elements, dependencies, and versions, helping you gain visibility into your software assets.  Following asset discovery, the following essential step is asset prioritization. This step involves assessing each asset's significance and potential impact on the organization's operations and security stance. Assets that are considered high-risk or mission-critical are given priority for remediation efforts. 

Dev or security teams will actively address identified vulnerabilities in the remediation phase to minimize risks. This remediation phase includes specific actions such as applying software patches, updating security protocols, or adjusting access controls as part of your Identity Governance framework.



Last but not least is continuous monitoring. Vigilant monitoring of the organization’s systems, networks, and assets for signs of unauthorized access, unusual activity, or potential breaches enables the timely detection and response to any emerging incidents. This minimizes the impact of cyberattacks and protects critical infrastructure. 

The importance of attack surface management

Thanks to agile software development, developers are taking on more significant responsibilities, particularly regarding security. ASM provides developers with the necessary tools to identify and address vulnerabilities proactively, aiding them in managing their expanding duties to ensure the security of their systems and applications.

Spotting security gaps in complex and dynamic environments

Developers work in ever-changing environments. This reality stems from frequent software updates, diverse application integrations, and the continuous deployment of new features. Each addition or alteration expands the attack surface and introduces potential vulnerabilities – presenting a daunting challenge for developers. ASM helps developers identify and mitigate any vulnerabilities in this dynamic development landscape.

Early vulnerability detection

Attack surface management allows developers to spot vulnerabilities early in the development lifecycle, long before they become cyberattack targets. By continuously scanning and evaluating the attack surface, developers can pinpoint potential weak points in their code, security misconfigurations, or third-party integrations, allowing them to take immediate action. This opportunity to detect vulnerabilities early in the SDLC leads to significant cost savings and risk reduction compared to fixing issues post-release.



Vulnerability prioritization

Once you spot a new vulnerability, the work doesn’t stop there. Attack surface management helps security teams focus on the most critical assets to secure. It’s crucial to analyze each vulnerability based on its severity, the likelihood of exploitation, and the potential damage this vulnerability could cause to your systems, depending on where it is located. With this information, you can rank vulnerabilities from most to least severe, know where to focus your team's efforts, and how and when to implement the proper security controls. 

Scalability and automation

As development teams expand and projects grow in complexity, relying solely on manual vulnerability management processes becomes less feasible. Attack surface management solutions, integrated seamlessly into other DevSecOps tools, provide developers with the scalability and automation necessary to match the demands of contemporary software development. 

By automating tasks like asset discovery, vulnerability scanning, and prioritizing remediation, developers can streamline their workflows and concentrate on efficiently resolving the most critical security issues.

The key challenges of implementing attack surface management 

Implementing ASM comes with its share of challenges. One of the primary reasons attack surface management is crucial is also one of the most challenging hurdles to overcome during implementation—the complexity of digital environments, compounded by numerous third-party integrations. This complexity can obscure visibility, making identifying all assets and their vulnerabilities challenging. 

Another major hurdle is the increasing speed of cyberattacks, as threat actors become more efficient at exploiting vulnerabilities rapidly and discreetly. As organizations strive to keep up, the pressure is on to detect and address vulnerabilities in real time. 

How can you implement attack surface management effectively?

Overcoming these key challenges is best managed by investing in a range of specialized tools tailored to different aspects of security – offering comprehensive visibility, automating vulnerability detection, and facilitating a rapid response to identified threats:

• Asset Discovery and Inventory Management – Tools like Tenable and Qualys identify all assets within the organization's infrastructure through comprehensive network scanning and passive scans. 



• Continuous Monitoring – Security information and event management (SIEM) solutions like Splunk and LogRhythm will aggregate and analyze security event data across the organization, enabling real-time threat detection and response. 
• Threat Detection – Use intrusion detection systems (IDS) such as Suricata to monitor network traffic for signs of unauthorized access, malware infections, or other malicious activity. 
• ASPM – Leverage Jit as a comprehensive platform to implement product security and testing quickly into your CI/CD pipeline. The ASPM tool streamlines the implementation of essential security controls with a wide range of tools that can monitor any attack surface, providing real-time alerts and even remediation guidance.



• Remediation – Streamline the process of addressing identified vulnerabilities by employing automated remediation tools like Puppet. These tools automatically apply patches and configuration changes to infrastructure, ensuring prompt deployment of security updates.

The frequency of ASM assessments may vary depending on factors such as the organization's risk tolerance, industry regulations, and the pace of change within the organization's infrastructure. However, as a general guideline, ASM assessments should be conducted at least quarterly, if not more frequently, to ensure that any new assets or changes to the attack surface are promptly identified and addressed.

Shed light on every attack surface

As businesses expand their digital reach, maintaining visibility and security across the entire attack surface becomes increasingly daunting. Enter attack surface management, a crucial solution that empowers development teams to identify and tackle vulnerabilities head-on. Effective ASM implementation calls for investment in robust asset management and security tools. 

Among these tools, Jit is the only tool that acts as an orchestration layer for your security tools and a source of security knowledge – in one comprehensive platform. With Jit, organizations can consolidate security plans, automate security plan deployment across their infrastructure, and receive remediation recommendations directly in their development environment (GitHub). Learn more here.