In the modern era, the phrase ‘attack surface intelligence‘ may be new and one that is championed by us at Perspective Intelligence. However, in due course, we’re certain it will become a buzzword within the realm of cybersecurity. As cyber threats continue to grow exponentially, understanding, managing, and monitoring your external attack surface has become an essential aspect of a robust cybersecurity strategy. In this comprehensive guide, we will dive deep into the world of attack surface intelligence, discussing its importance, the challenges it presents, and the tools available that can help you stay one step ahead of cybercriminals.
Understanding Attack Surface Intelligence: A Brief Overview
The term ‘attack surface intelligence’ refers to the process of identifying, cataloguing, and analysing all the potential entry points that cyber attackers could exploit to infiltrate an organisation’s digital infrastructure. This could encompass hardware, software, network services, or even the human element – such as unsuspecting employees being lured into phishing scams, social media content being used to target the organisation, and even manipulation through social engineering.
Attack surface intelligence is about identifying vulnerabilities and understanding the potential threats that could exploit them, and then implementing measures to mitigate these threats. By effectively managing and monitoring your external attack surface, you can significantly reduce the risk of a successful cyber attack.
The Significance of Attack Surface Intelligence
As organisations continue to expand their digital footprint – whether through the adoption of cloud services, IoT devices, or remote work policies – the attack surface also grows correspondingly. Each new device, user, application, or network connection can potentially introduce new vulnerabilities, thereby expanding the attack surface.
If we take the example of remote working, if employees can utilise their own devices to access email or other work systems, there’s a greatly increased risk to the business. Whether it’s unpatched or pirated software or misconfiguration. The threat from something like information-stealing malware is dramatically increased, and potentially, access to the organisation’s internal network could be bought for $10 or less on criminal marketplaces.
Attack surface intelligence plays a critical role in protecting organisations from cyber threats. By providing a holistic view of all potential entry points and vulnerabilities, it allows organisations to proactively identify and address weaknesses before attackers can exploit them. This not only enhances an organisation’s cybersecurity posture but also helps to prevent potentially severe financial and reputational damage. Effectively, Attack Surface Intelligence enables you to specifically tailor your response and mitigations to threats that actually matter to your organisation, enabling faster response and ultimately, raising the barrier to entry for a would-be attacker – Leaving them more likely to move on from your organisation due to the mitigations in place.
The Challenges of Attack Surface Intelligence
Despite the many benefits of attack surface intelligence, implementing it effectively comes with its own set of challenges. One of the primary challenges is the dynamic nature of cyber threats. With new attack vectors emerging continually, organisations must stay vigilant and keep their security practices up-to-date.
Another major challenge is the sheer volume of data that needs to be analysed and monitored. With potentially thousands of assets and vulnerabilities to track, organisations often struggle to manage their attack surface effectively due to a lack of resources or expertise. Of course, at Perspective Intelligence, we offer our ASI packages to organisations to reduce this burden, and to provide a regular cadence of reporting to our clients so they can mitigate and remediate potential issues in their external attack surface.
Top Open-Source Tools for Attack Surface Intelligence
Fortunately, there are numerous open-source tools available that can help organisations monitor and manage their attack surface effectively. Here are some of the top tools that you should consider:
SpiderFoot
SpiderFoot is an open-source intelligence (OSINT) automation tool. It’s designed to automate the process of gathering intelligence about a given target, which may be an IP address, domain name, hostname, network subnet, or ASN. SpiderFoot can be used offensively by penetration testers and defensively by network administrators to identify potential attack surfaces on their systems.
OpenVAS
OpenVAS (Open Vulnerability Assessment System) is a full-featured vulnerability scanner. Its capabilities include unauthenticated testing, authenticated testing, various high-level and low-level internet and industrial protocols, performance tuning for large-scale scans, and a powerful internal programming language to implement any type of vulnerability test.
OWASP Amass
The OWASP Amass Project performs network mapping of attack surfaces and external asset discovery using open-source information gathering and active reconnaissance techniques. It helps to identify and map out domains, subdomains, IP addresses, and the associated hosting providers and certificates.
Nmap (Network Mapper)
Nmap is a free and open-source utility for network discovery and security auditing. Many systems and network administrators find it useful for tasks such as network inventory, managing service upgrade schedules, and monitoring host or service uptime.
Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT)
While not a piece of software, leveraging the most cutting-edge OSINT techniques to understand what is said about your organisations across the Internet – Including social media, the dark web and criminal underground can be an incredibly powerful tool. It can be time-consuming but it will give you a fully-rounded picture of the threats that may target, or have targeted your organisation where traditional security platforms may fail.
As with any open-source project, you may find tools stop receiving support or move to commercial platforms in due course. However, by leveraging these kinds of tools you can achieve significant traction and understanding of your infrastructure.
Conclusion
In the dynamic and ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity, the importance of attack surface intelligence cannot be overstated. By proactively managing and monitoring your attack surface, you can not only prevent cyber attacks but also safeguard your organisation’s reputation and financial stability. With the right tools and strategies at your disposal, you can navigate the complex world of cybersecurity with confidence and ease. So, whether you’re based in bustling London or anywhere else in the UK, remember – when it comes to your external attack surface, prevention is always better than cure.
FAQs
What is attack surface intelligence?
Attack surface intelligence is the practice of identifying, assessing, and mitigating vulnerabilities and entry points in an organisation’s digital infrastructure and beyond the realms of the infrastructure they control. It considers the entire Internet, social media, data breaches, dark web and underground forums and chat channels to provide a truly well-rounded understanding of the threat to the organisation.
Which tool among attack surface intelligence tools is best?
While there are numerous effective open-source tools available, you truly need a combination of tools and intelligence analysis and research to truly benefit from attack surface intelligence.
How does Perspective Intelligence conduct ASI?
Perspective Intelligence conducts ASI by leveraging a combination of tools, scripts and cutting-edge OSINT tradecraft, research and analysis to support our clients to enable their understanding of their external attack surface. This is performed in a completely non-invasive fashion and requires almost no knowledge of the client’s organisation to get started. However, the more seed knowledge we have, the better we can ensure our results are.
How can I enquire about ASI from Perspective Intelligence?
You can contact Perspective Intelligence via email info@perspectiveintelligence.co.uk or call freephone 0800 915 3650.
About Perspective Intelligence
Perspective Intelligence is a United Kingdom-based cyber intelligence specialist. We offer services across attack surface, cyber threat and open-source intelligence in addition to intelligence training services both in-person and online.
About Aaron Roberts
Aaron Roberts is an intelligence professional specialising in Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) and Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT). He is focused on building intelligence-led cyber capabilities in businesses of all sizes and conducting online investigations and research. He has worked within the public and private sectors and the British Military. As such, he understands how intelligence can and should be utilised within all environments and the fundamental approach businesses must take to get the maximum value out of their cyber intelligence program.
Aaron founded Perspective Intelligence in 2020 as he identified several ways in which his experience could support and improve the underlying security posture of organisations across the UK and globally. Aaron delivers training on behalf of Perspective Intelligence and is the author of the book Cyber Threat Intelligence: The No-Nonsense Guide for CISOs and Security Managers.