Understanding Attack Surface Analysis: Strengthening Your Cybersecurity

Published on: 2023 October 23

The data that your organization possesses is the most alluring bait for any cybercriminal. If data were lost, whether through theft or deliberate destruction, it would be a major issue for our company. Hackers can take advantage of numerous entry points. However, a piece of software is the primary means of obtaining data. As a result, you must safeguard software access that opens the door to crucial data repositories.

A map of all the possible entry points in your software inventory that hackers can exploit is your system's attack surface. Attack surfaces in today's enterprises are constantly growing and encompass all devices, cloud storage, on-premise storage, network connections, apps, services, and other remotely accessible physical and digital assets. The process of locating, confirming, validating, and reducing these possible security risks and vulnerabilities is known as attack surface analysis.

An examination of the threat surface is a crucial component of any comprehensive cybersecurity plan. Organizations may lower the risk of a cyberattack and protect their priceless assets by proactively identifying and mitigating potential vulnerabilities.

Organizations trying to improve their security posture and safeguard their infrastructure must comprehend what an attack surface is, why it is important, and the goals and techniques for conducting an analysis. This post will explain how to protect your system and cover the fundamentals and significance of attack surface analysis under the topics listed below.

• What is Attack Surface Analysis?
• Why is Attack Surface Analysis Important?
• What are the objectives of Attack Surface Analysis
• What are some commonly used Attack Vectors by Attackers?
• How to Perform an Attack Surface Analysis?
  1. Asset Discovery
  2. Vulnerability Assessment
  3. Threat Modeling
  4. Risk Assessment
  5. Mitigation Strategies
• What are the Tools for Attack Surface Analysis?
• What are the some Best Practices for Attack Surface Analysis?

What is Attack Surface Analysis?

The process of locating and assessing possible openings for intrusions into the systems and infrastructure of an organization is known as attack surface analysis. Mapping every attack vector inside the organization is part of attack surface analysis. Organizations can decrease the number of attack vectors by using them to identify risky regions and vulnerable systems.

Organizations can find high-risk regions for defense-in-depth and places that need more security testing for vulnerabilities by using attack surface analysis. Attack surface analysis is used to identify situations in which modifications to the attack surface result from changes made to the infrastructure.

Attack surface analysis tries to find the most vulnerable parts of an application, let developers and security experts know about those parts, come up with ways to protect against those weaknesses, and keep track of changes to the attack surface and what they mean for risk.

Attack surface analysis is done in two major ways: automatically using tools or manually with the assistance of security architects and penetration testers. Software for managing attack surfaces keeps an eye out for misconfiguration and newly discovered vulnerabilities in the infrastructure.

Why is Attack Surface Analysis Important?

Attack surface analysis is essential for organizations because it can help them find high-risk locations for defense-in-depth and pinpoint regions that need more security testing for vulnerabilities. A business can lower the likelihood of a cyberattack by taking the necessary security precautions and mitigating potential risks through a proactive assessment of the attack surface. This analysis is used to identify situations in which modifications to the attack surface result from changes made to the infrastructure.

Organizations can lessen their attack surface and strengthen their overall security posture by looking at the several methods an attacker can attempt to enter a system.

This can involve putting in place more robust security measures, like intrusion detection systems and firewalls, patching known vulnerabilities on a regular basis, and keeping an eye out for unusual activity on the network. Organizations can find hidden weaknesses, bolster their security measures, and lower their total risk exposure by carrying out a thorough attack surface study.

An important component of evaluating the organization's security systems is attack surface analysis. Analysis of the attack surface is crucial since it offers the following security protections:

• Detect and identify a system's weak points
• Determine which high-risk regions require defense security and quick analysis
• Stop risks from legacy systems, IoT, and any assets that are hidden.
• Prevent human errors.
• Avoid any sophisticated and extensive attacks on your company.
• Stop any online danger.

What are the Objectives of Attack Surface Analysis?

Attack surface analysis plots your attack vectors to assist in determining the system vulnerabilities in your company and the possibility that hackers could take advantage of them in an internal or external attack to obtain sensitive data.

The primary goal of attack surface analysis is to pinpoint more effective approaches to managing system vulnerabilities and attack probability. One of the easiest ways to do it is to minimize your attack surface.

User account management should be the main focus of an internal attack surface study. It is necessary that you examine the user groups that you have established in your identity and access management system and choose how to further define each. The next step is to determine which user accounts are part of each group.

Automated procedures for backend accounts are difficult. There isn't much you can do about these other than increase your assault surface. These secondary data-accessing packages wouldn't function properly if access to them was blocked. But you need to let those packages work because you most likely bought and installed them for a good purpose.

Ensuring strict access controls for those packages is the solution to secondary access. Let's say that automated procedures transfer data to other locations rather than allowing users to use those software packages directly. If so, you have an additional attack surface extension that needs to be addressed. Analysis of the exterior assault surface may involve this.

An analysis of the external attack surface examines all possible hacker access points located outside of your home network. APIs and cloud services are included in this. Prior to delving into the kinds of data that each of those external processes and services handles, the analysis must first identify all of them.

The analysis must look for details regarding the security procedures those external service providers have in place. Data encryption solutions for transfers and storage are examples of protection details. User access controls on the remote system should be taken into account.

The analysis of external attack surfaces can be aided by third-party risk assessment tools. You must, in part, rely on the integrity and standing of outside service providers. The tracking of data leak occurrences at a list of service providers by third-party risk assessment systems facilitates the assessment of whether cloud services are vulnerable to security breaches.

What are Used Attack Vectors by Attackers?

Malware, viruses, email attachments, websites, pop-ups, instant chats, text messaging, and social engineering are among the most often used attack vectors. Typical examples of attack vectors are outlined below:

1. Compromised Credentials: Passwords and usernames remain the most popular kind of access credentials, and they are still vulnerable to malware, phishing schemes, and data breaches. Credentials that are misplaced, stolen, or exposed provide hackers with unrestricted access. For this reason, businesses are now spending money on systems to keep an eye out for credential leaks and data breaches. Password managers, biometrics, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and two-factor authentication (2FA) can all help lower the chance that compromised credentials will result in a security incident.
2. Fake Certifications: One data breach can lead to several more due to weak passwords and password reuse. Instruct staff members on the advantages of using a single sign-on application or password manager, and teach your business how to develop strong passwords.
3. Internal Threats: Malicious insiders or disgruntled workers may divulge confidential information or reveal weaknesses unique to the firm.
4. Inadequate or Absent Encryption: Common data encryption techniques that safeguard the secrecy of transmitted data include SSL certificates and DNSSEC. They help to thwart man-in-the-middle attacks. In the event of a data breach or leak, sensitive data or login credentials may be made public due to inadequate or absent encryption for data at rest.
5. Inaccurate Setup: Check your S3 permissions, or someone else will. Incorrectly configuring cloud services like Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure, or AWS, or utilizing default credentials, can result in data breaches and leaks. To avoid configuration drift, automate configuration management wherever it is practical.
6. Cryptolocker: Ransomware, like WannaCry, is a type of extortion wherein data is encrypted or erased unless a ransom is paid. Maintaining defenses, which should include backing up important data and keeping your systems patched, will lessen the damage that ransomware attacks cause.
7. Scammer: Phishing attacks are a type of social engineering attack in which an individual impersonating a trustworthy colleague or organization contacts the target via email, phone, or text message with the intention of tricking them into divulging sensitive information, login credentials, or personally identifying information (PII). Users may be directed to harmful websites by fraudulent messages that include malware or viruses.
8. Vulnerabilities: Every day, fresh security flaws are added to the CVE, and zero-day vulnerabilities are discovered on a daily basis. It might be challenging to stop zero-day attacks if a developer hasn't provided a patch for a vulnerability before an attacker can take advantage of it.
9. Use of force: The foundation of brute force attacks is trial and error. Attackers might keep trying to enter your organization until they find a way through. This might be accomplished by sending phishing emails, targeting weak passwords or encryption, or delivering compromised email attachments that include malware.
10. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks: DDoS assaults are cyberattacks that target networked resources, such as servers, data centers, websites, and web apps, and they can reduce a computer system's availability. The network resource is overloaded with messages from the attacker, causing it to slow down or possibly crash and rendering it unusable for users. A couple of possible mitigations are proxies and CDNs.
11. SQL Injections: A structured query language, or SQL, is a programming language that is used to interact with databases. Many servers that store sensitive information use SQL to manage the data in their database. Through the use of malicious SQL, a SQL injection can force a server to provide information it otherwise wouldn't. If the database contains credentials, credit card numbers, client information, or other personally identifiable information (PII), there is a serious cyber risk.
12. Trojan horses: Trojan horses are dangerous programs that trick users into believing they are safe programs. They are typically distributed through contaminated email attachments or phony malicious software.
13. XSS, or cross-site scripting: XSS attacks include inserting malicious code into a website with the intention of affecting its users rather than attacking the website itself. Cross-site scripting attacks are frequently carried out by malicious code injection, such as when a link to malicious JavaScript is embedded in the comment section of a blog article.
14. Session Hijacking: A session key or cookie is often sent to your computer by the service when you log in, saving you from having to do it again. An attacker may be able to take control of this cookie and use it to obtain private data.
15. Man-in-the-Middle Attacks: Man-in-the-middle attacks (MiTM)can be used to intercept traffic that is intended to go somewhere else, such as when you enter a secure system, by taking advantage of public Wi-Fi networks.
16. Vendors from Third and Fourth Parties: Your vendors present a serious cybersecurity risk to the data of your customers and your proprietary information due to the increase in outsourcing. A number of the largest data breaches were the result of outside interference.

How to Perform an Attack Surface Analysis?

The main steps in the attack surface analysis are as follows:

1. Asset Discovery
2. Vulnerability Scanning and Assessment
3. Threat Modeling
4. Risk Assessment
5. Mitigation Strategies

Step	Description
Asset Discovery	Asset identification and counting recognize every component in your infrastructure, including its settings, applications, and network connections. In addition, this covers various compliance certifications and external penetration assessments of vendor infrastructure, and third-party risk management.
Vulnerability Scanning and Assessment	Examining and evaluating assets for weaknesses and assessing related risks This comprises red team operations, penetration tests, vulnerability assessments, and purple teaming using tools for simulating breaches and attacks.
Threat Modeling	Modeling threats utilizes common security frameworks to analyze potential risks to each asset and assess their impact and likelihood.
Risk Assessment	Putting vulnerability risk mitigation plans into action by using tools like firewall configuration, software patches, access control, network segmentation, privileged access management, and zero-trust models.
Mitigation Strategies	An attack surface analysis can be carried out in a number of ways, some of which involve the use of automated tools like vulnerability and network scanners.

Asset Discovery

Making a list of assets is not the only step in the asset discovery process. To make sure all assets are secure and in compliance with company policy and industry standards, you need to identify and record the configurations, software versions, and network connections of each asset.

• Cloud-Based Systems: Attackers look for known weaknesses in your cloud architecture and try to take advantage of them. It's critical to understand the settings and software versions of all assets, including endpoints, software, and API connections, since this will enable you to identify cloud assets that are using out-of-date or unpatched software. Then, in order to reduce the chance of a cyberattack, you might give patching and updating priority.
• Cloud-based services: These days, using cloud services is rather typical. Data leakage can result from improper setup of those cloud services or poor integration with cloud infrastructure, which includes networking, computing, and storage services. To determine which assets are accessible to the public or contain sensitive data, it is essential to comprehend the network connections of each asset. Then, you may put up barriers that let authorized users access the resources they need but prohibit unauthorized users from accessing particular network areas. On the other hand, identity access management must be handled in order to restrict user privileges, grant them the access and rights they truly require, and ensure that any unused accounts are updated.
• Unofficial IT sources: Attack surface analysis begins with the identification of "Shadow IT" resources. The term "shadow IT" describes how employees of a company use hardware and software without the IT department's consent. Unauthorized devices, apps, services, and cloud-based services are a few examples.
• Inventory of third-party assets: Finding security vulnerabilities with suppliers and other outside providers who have access to the assets of your company is part of asset discovery. Unknown security flaws introduced by third parties, such as cloud service providers, software vendors, or contractors, may lead to an attack. As a result, you have to: for all third-party assets
  • Make security evaluations.
  • Examine the terms of the contracts.
  • Make sure the obligations for third-party security are well defined.

Vulnerability Scanning and Assessment

Vulnerability scanning and assessment are important to attack surface analysis methods that help businesses find weak spots and holes in the security measures that protect their infrastructure. They make use of strategies including red/purple teaming, vulnerability scanning, and penetration testing. Vulnerability scanning strategies are as follows:

• Scanning for vulnerabilities: The method of vulnerability scanning involves the use of automated technologies (like Red Hat ACS and Aquasec). The tools look for software characteristics on the network, such as open ports, operating system versions, and other things. They compare the traits to a database of known vulnerabilities in the wild and sound an alarm if they find a match.
• Tests for penetrations: A method used to mimic an attack on a company's network or application is called penetration testing. There are three types of testing available: gray, white, and black box. It typically consists of, but is not limited to, external pentests of the infrastructure of third-party providers, internal applications, and infrastructure.
• Using a red team: Red team exercises examine an organization's security posture by simulating actual attacks. Competent ethical hackers use a variety of strategies, including phishing assaults, social engineering, and advanced persistent threats (APTs), to try and breach an organization's security. Organizations can reduce security risks and minimize the impact of an attack, should one occur, by simulating an actual attack and taking corrective action prior to the attack. Because red team activities use real-world scenarios that encompass every stage of the cyber death chain, they are more sophisticated than penetration tests.
• Purple teaming: Purple teaming is a cooperative strategy wherein your internal security team, which consists of defenders, and your red team, which consists of attackers, collaborate to assess how successful your security policies are. This method usually includes the use of tools for simulating breaches and attacks. Compared to red teaming, purple teaming is less hostile. Evaluating current vulnerabilities and response strategies requires cooperation.

Threat Modeling

Threat modeling, which involves assigning a threat's priority based on a number of parameters, including the likelihood of an attack and the potential loss if it is successful, is an excellent place to start when assessing the severity of the threat.

The first step in threat modeling is to examine the assets from the viewpoint of the adversary. We can identify possible attack points and vectors by evaluating the probability that malicious actors will target a specific place, and then adjust our response appropriately.

Threat modeling outlines three essential components to help determine which vulnerabilities require immediate attention:

1. Most vulnerable areas
2. Most likely dangers
3. Strategies and options for mitigation By taking these things into account, we can make sure that we strike a balance between the risk that certain attack vectors present and how easily we can neutralize a threat. This procedure makes it clearer if it is preferable to concentrate on more high-risk risks that require more time to fix or to deal with quick, simple problems initially. Priorities depend on well-balanced decision-making, and threat modeling is essential to well-balanced decision-making.

Risk Assessment

Organizations can effectively strengthen their security posture and address vulnerabilities by taking the following actions:

• Perform routine configuration and infrastructure audits.
• In order to keep your systems safe and current, make sure you regularly check and install software patches.
• Regularly update and reconfigure firewall rules in light of emerging threats.
• To manage and keep an eye on who has access to your systems and apps, divide your network into sections.
• Limit and closely monitor who has access to privileged accounts that contain sensitive data.
• Put in place a zero-trust approach with stringent access controls and user authentication requirements.

Remember that we have just discussed general security measures that are appropriate for attack surface analysis across all kinds of companies. The aforementioned list needs to be adjusted in light of your unique infrastructure and assessment findings.

Mitigation Strategies

An attack surface analysis can be carried out in a number of ways, some of which involve the use of automated tools like vulnerability and network scanners.

In order to evaluate an attack surface, organizations can employ social engineering methods and manual testing. Combining these tactics might be the best course of action because it allows for a thorough analysis of the architecture of a company.

• Tools that automate: To find weaknesses in infrastructure, businesses can employ automated technologies like networks and vulnerability scanners. These programs are able to scan a network and find vulnerabilities such as obsolete software, exposed ports, and weak passwords. Organizations can use them to identify known vulnerabilities in particular software programs and pinpoint areas that need security fixes.
• By-hand testing: Manual testing entails the organization's security team conducting focused testing to find potential vulnerabilities. Penetration testing, social engineering, and other methods to find possible weaknesses in the infrastructure of the company can be used. Although manual testing takes time and requires certain knowledge and abilities, it can yield important insights on the attack surface of an organization that automated techniques might overlook.
• Social manipulation: Using social engineering, one can obtain unauthorized access to an organization's infrastructure by taking advantage of human behavior. It can involve strategies to get sensitive information, such as phishing emails or posing as a reliable person. Organizations should include social engineering testing in their attack surface analysis since social engineering assaults can be difficult to identify.

What are the Tools for Attack Surface Analysis?

Proactive, rather than just reactive, behavior is required for cyber threat intelligence. Therefore, it's critical to have tools that can assist in locating possible vulnerabilities before they're taken advantage of. An attack surface analysis can be performed using a variety of methods. Among the most well-liked attack surface analyses are the following:

1. Nmap: An organization uses the well-liked open-source program Nmap to scan networks for open ports, services, and operating systems. Nmap is used to map out your attack surface, inventory network devices, and keep an eye on hosts or service uptime.
2. Nessus: Nessus is a vulnerability scanner that can find possible security holes in a network or system.
3. OpenVAS: Network security vulnerabilities can be found with an open-source vulnerability scanner. OpenVAS dubbed the "world's most advanced open-source vulnerability scanner," is a priceless tool for keeping an eye on your attack surface because it provides an extensive library of possible threats.
4. Qualys: A platform for cloud-based security and compliance that can detect security threats and problems with compliance on a network. The well-known Qualys Cloud Platform is available for free as the Qualys Community Edition. It provides online app scanning, digital certificate security, vulnerability identification, and security configuration auditing.
5. Attack Surface Analyzer: Attack Surface Analyzer is an open-source security tool that Microsoft developed that can identify changes to a system's attack surface after the installation of new software.

What are Best Practices for Attack Surface Analysis?

It might be difficult to do an attack surface analysis; thus, in order to get reliable and useful results, you must adhere to the following best practices for attack surface analysis:

• Utilize categories to map attack surfaces as a framework: Analysis becomes easier to handle when the mapping process is divided into categories like network, database, or API. These categories offer a framework for analyzing the attack surface, which is helpful in organizing the process of finding the attack surface. Although this can be done manually, there are automated scanning tools that can do this, such as those from Snyk, which can scan the environment and find prospective attack spots or vectors. Furthermore, these instruments identify flaws that increase the attack point's susceptibility.
• Establish attack surface discovery as an ongoing procedure: As new features and components are added to the system on a regular basis, attack surface detection should be done on a regular basis to keep the system secure. Finding attack surfaces should be an ongoing activity to keep ahead of possible dangers and weaknesses. Here are a few strategies to turn it into an ongoing process:
  • Frequent evaluations of vulnerabilities: Make routine vulnerability evaluations of your apps and systems. This will assist you in locating such weaknesses and addressing them before an exploiter may take advantage of them.
  • Testing for penetration: To mimic actual assaults and find potential security flaws in your systems and apps, conduct penetration testing on a regular basis.
  • Ongoing observation: To quickly identify possible security risks, put your systems and apps under continuous monitoring.
  • Employee education: Conduct frequent training sessions for staff members on cybersecurity best practices, such as spotting possible attack surfaces and reporting questionable activities.
  • Follow the trends in the industry: Keep abreast of the most recent advancements and trends in cybersecurity, including fresh attack techniques and security holes.
• Strive to keep your supply chain safe: Despite being frequently disregarded, supply chain security is crucial. Being aware of any risks associated with alliances with other businesses, such as suppliers or vendors, is necessary for maintaining a secure supply chain. For example, malicious actors have the ability to introduce vulnerabilities into code found in open-source repositories, thereby expanding the attack surface of any business using that code.
• Participate in the community for cybersecurity: Engaging with the cybersecurity community can be a beneficial way to learn about emerging trends in security and potential hazards. Groups like the SANS Institute, ISC2, OWASP, OpenSSF, and OpenSSF encourage information sharing amongst enterprises and can sound the alarm about new threats or hacking techniques.
• Verify license adherence: Reducing the attack surface is accomplished by making sure your licenses are up-to-date. Implementing the program in a way that complies with your license is known as license compliance. When it complies with the license, the licensee's security patch will fix vulnerabilities. Patches, however, might not apply properly if the product is not used in a manner that complies with the license. Furthermore, applications that are open source may utilize programs that need licenses. It is expected of you to obtain your own licensing for these applications; if you do not, you run the risk of potential legal action as well as security flaws.

Beyond all of this, the following would be a summary of the recommended methods for carrying out an attack surface analysis:

• Clearly outlining the analysis's parameters before getting started
• Recognizing every item that falls under the purview, such as data, software, and hardware.
• Acquiring as much data as you can on every asset will guarantee a complete and accurate analysis.
• Making use of a range of instruments and methods to guarantee that every possible weakness is found.
• Arranging vulnerabilities in order of severity and probability of exploitation
• Effectively conveying the results to the relevant parties and offering repair suggestions.