COMMENTARY: For businesses looking to modernize and transform digitally, their infrastructure becomes increasingly connected to cloud environments, remote work setups, and third-party integrations.
At the same time, enterprise networks are no longer limited to on-premises data centers. Today, an organization’s network extends across into hybrid and multi-cloud and SaaS environments. While these changes are all for increased efficiency, they also expand an organization’s external attack surface. Therefore, cybersecurity practices must adapt accordingly.
Internet exposure defined
An organization's internet exposure consists of the collection of assets that are accessible from the public internet, whether intentionally or unintentionally. These assets often include open ports, APIs, cloud storage, web apps, and sometimes forgotten servers and devices that are still connected online. These assets are often overlooked, unmonitored, or misconfigured, making them susceptible to security drift and increasingly vulnerable to cyber-attacks.
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In today’s threat landscape, attackers always scan the internet for exposed assets that might be a potential entry point. A single unpatched system can give attackers the leverage they need to enter and exfiltrate data from the business’s network, launch a ransomware attack, or some other malicious act. Discovering, assessing and monitoring all internet exposure has become critical for organizations looking to reduce the possibility of a cyber incident.
Internet exposure’s role in vulnerability management
Most organizations have adopted a more connected information architecture, which means they must adapt the way they handle vulnerability management. Traditionally, vulnerability management was focused on identifying and remediating vulnerabilities within the organization’s infrastructure. Modern vulnerability management must contextualize the increased risk posed by external, internet-facing assets. Vulnerability prioritization now needs to account for real-world exposure, assessing where an organization’s digital assets are the most vulnerable to exploitation and attack.
This means security teams need insights into which assets are most at risk, considering technical severity, asset type, business impact, sensitive data, and internet exposure. This risk-based approach to vulnerability management can help security professionals more effectively focus resources on the most critical exposures rather than low-risk vulnerabilities.
Critical challenges vulnerability management teams face today
When security teams evolve their processes to integrate internet exposure into the vulnerability management process, it can create some challenges including:
Best practices for considering internet exposure in vulnerability management
A comprehensive vulnerability management and cyber risk strategy needs to include specific consideration for externally facing assets, focusing on ongoing visibility, prioritization, and actionable insights. Best practices include:
Digital innovation continues to speed up, which means an organization’s network and infrastructure will likely become more connected. For security teams, understanding and managing internet exposure has become a requirement. By integrating internet exposure into an organization’s cybersecurity strategy, security teams can leverage risk-based prioritization, continuous visibility, and collaboration to proactively identify and remediate the exposures that matter most.
Aaron Unterberger, director of solutions engineering, Nucleus Security
SC Media Perspectives columns are written by a trusted community of SC Media cybersecurity subject matter experts. Each contribution has a goal of bringing a unique voice to important cybersecurity topics. Content strives to be of the highest quality, objective and non-commercial.
