Practical Methods for Assessing Your External Attack Surface
Attackers Window Shop for Your Network Attack Surface The previous post Public Exposure by Lari Huttunen made good points on reducing your external attack surface. This subject has become more important than ever as the interest of attackers on network-based attacks has grown in recent years. A host of vulnerabilities in internet-facing services have been successfully used by attackers to gain an initial foothold at their victims. The trend has not gone unnoticed. As an example, the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued multiple directives to mitigate network-based risks in the last three years. Their rationale: the average time between discovery and exploitation of a vulnerability is decreasing as today’s adversaries are more skilled, persistent, and able to exploit known vulnerabilities. At the same time, many if not most organisations struggle with asset and vulnerability management. They simply are not aware of all the systems they own and cannot keep up with the pace that patches are published.
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