Exposure Management – The Proactive Tool to Fend Off Sophisticated Cyber Threats

The rising cybersecurity risks are a cause for worry for IT teams across verticals. This is where organizations need a proactive and advanced mechanism to counter the new-age threats and threat actors. Exposure and vulnerability management are considered as one of the most ideal solutions for mitigating cyber threats.

But what is exposure and vulnerability management?
Exposure and vulnerability management are both important aspects of cybersecurity, but they focus on different aspects of protecting an organization’s systems and data.

Exposure management is the process of identifying and mitigating potential risks or vulnerabilities in an organization’s systems and infrastructure. It involves assessing the overall risk landscape and implementing measures to minimize the impact of potential threats. Vulnerability management is a subset of exposure management and specifically focuses on identifying, evaluating, and mitigating vulnerabilities in an organization’s systems and applications. It involves a systematic approach to proactively identify and address weaknesses that could be exploited by attackers.

The key components for strong exposure management are – Vulnerability Assessment, Risk Assessment, Risk Mitigation, Patch Management, Secure Configuration Management, Security Awareness and Training, Incident Response Planning, and Continuous Monitoring.

Why is exposure management needed?
Exposure management in cybersecurity is crucial for several reasons:

Risk Reduction: Exposure management helps in reducing the overall risk to an organization’s digital assets. By identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the system, exposure management minimizes the chances of cyberattacks and data breaches.

Vulnerability Identification: This process helps in understanding potential entry points that attackers could exploit, allowing proactive measures to be taken to strengthen security.
Prioritization of Security Measures: Exposure management helps organizations prioritize their security measures based on the level of risk associated with each vulnerability.

Compliance Requirements: Many industries and regulatory frameworks require organizations to implement exposure management practices as part of their security and compliance efforts. By adhering to these standards, organizations can demonstrate their commitment to protecting sensitive data and maintaining a secure environment.

Incident Response Preparedness: By continuously monitoring and managing exposures, organizations can detect and respond to potential security incidents more effectively. This proactive approach allows for faster containment and remediation of security breaches, reducing the overall impact on the organization.

Reputation and Customer Trust: Exposure management helps in preventing and minimizing the impact of security breaches, enhancing the organization’s reputation and maintaining customer confidence in their ability to protect sensitive information.

Skybox’s award-winning exposure management solution is a go-to option for businesses
Skybox’s Vulnerability and Threat Management solution leverages the company’s proprietary network modelling, exposure management, and path analysis to provide precise exposure analysis and vulnerability prioritization and management.

Skybox’s approach to vulnerability and threat management delivers four essential benefits for customers:
Skybox aggregates vulnerability data from all assets (including IT, OT, and multi-cloud) and every corner of the network. Unique scan-less detection capabilities and active scanning deliver a 360-degree view of the attack surface.

Daily, human-curated threat intelligence is fed into the Skybox network model. Exposure, CVSS severity, exploitability, asset importance, and automated cyber risk quantification capabilities including financial impact provide an exact risk score used to prioritize action where it matters most proactively reducing your risk of attack.

Skybox identifies and automatically recommends effective, practical options to reduce risk. Available patches are aggregated by Skybox threat analysts daily, however, remediation options go beyond patching and include configuration changes, network segmentation, and more. Attacks, including zero days, can be prevented, even when patches are impractical or unavailable.

Integrations with ITSM tools assist in implementing and maintaining remediation through ongoing oversight. The solution automatically generates tickets, tracks performance versus SLAs, keeps stakeholders apprised, and ensures issues are promptly addressed.

Skybox continues to evolve this solution and recently added the ability to quantify cyber risk exposure in financial terms to help organizations pinpoint cyber risks with the highest potential financial impact. By implementing exposure management practices, organizations can reduce their attack surface, minimize the risk of data breaches, and improve their overall cybersecurity posture. It is important to tailor exposure management strategies to the specific needs and risks of each organization and regularly review and update them to address emerging threats and technologies.