Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management 101
Uncover CAASM use cases, best practices and comparisons against other emerging technologies with Noetic’s Ultimate Guide to CAASM.
© Copyright 2023 Noetic
When it comes to securing your attack surface, visibility is key. However, as environments continue to multiply in size and complexity, many organizations struggle to achieve full visibility across their entire estate—especially as they migrate to cloud environments.
That’s where cyber asset attack surface management (CAASM) comes in.
What is Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management?
According to Gartner, cyber asset attack surface management (CAASM) is an emerging technology that enables security teams to solve persistent asset visibility and vulnerability challenges. CAASM solutions aggregate data from existing tools and data feeds to provide a continuous, multidimensional view of an organization’s entire attack surface.
CAASM virtually eliminates blind spots and provides fast track for security operations teams on the road to proactive cyber security and risk management. In fact, thanks to CAASM, Gartner anticipates the number of organizations with ≥95% asset visibility will grow to 20% by 2026, up from less than 1% today.
What are the use cases for CAASM?
The more data you ingest into your platform, the more value you’ll get out of it. At a high level, a CAASM solution supports the following cybersecurity and risk initiatives:
- Automated Cyber Asset Inventories: Maintain a unified view of the attack surface by ingesting data from existing security tools, databases, controls, etc. CAASM seamlessly connects to virtually any source through agent-less connectors, enabling teams to achieve unparalleled visibility of everything that holds value to the organization.
- Endpoint Security: Automatically identify security coverage gaps and system misconfigurations, and ensure necessary tools are deployed to maintain a robust ecosystem.
- Information Technology Systems Management: Maximize return on investment and ensure data hygiene by cross referencing the data ingested from your IT tools against your CMDB.
- Vulnerability Management: Streamline virtually every stage of the vulnerability management lifecycle by leveraging the aggregation and contextualization capabilities within a centralized dashboard.
- Incident Response: Significantly accelerate response times, identify risks in real-time and even pinpoint the blast radius in the event an incident occurs.
- Identity & Access Management: Rapidly understand and address privilege boundaries by comparing your attack surface against identity and access management systems such as Okta, Active Director, AWS IAM and more.
- Compliance Assessments: Eliminate the need for “point-in-time” audits with continuous testing and evidence collection for common control frameworks including CIS, NIST, ISO 27001, and more.
Available eBook: Making the Case for Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management
Get instant access to exclusive insights from former Gartner Analyst and advisor Brad LaPorte, including:
• How CAASM addresses the main issues security team face
• Key considerations for evaluating CAASM tools
• Where Noetic fits into your security infrastructure
What are the benefits of CAASM?
With CAASM, users gain a deep understanding of not only of where the assets in their environment exist, but also how they’re connected. Even still, that’s just scratching the surface of what’s possible.
CAASM tools offer an extensive range of benefits, including:
Attack surface reduction
Identifying high-risk vulnerabilities, shadow IT, security coverage gaps and non-compliant controls enables organizations to safeguard themselves against the adversary.
Expedited incident response
Automated asset intelligence with context helps incident responders understand exactly where to focus their efforts.
Elimination of data siloes
Conflicting data sources tend to have a negative impact on the accuracy and coverage of an organization’s attack surface. That’s not a concern for teams with a single source of truth.
Optimization of existing resources
When conducted manually, each cyber asset inventory requires an average of 89 person hours to collect, process and analyze data. With CAASM, teams don’t have to worry about the laborious, manual processes that keep them from value-add tasks.
Streamlined compliance assessments and questionnaires
Automating evidence collection for governance, risk and compliance enables teams to drastically reduce the time it takes to complete an audit.
Ease of demonstrating value over time
A centralized dashboard enables security and risk leaders to quickly generate common reports and dashboards, and better demonstrate trends over time.
Driving organizational efficiency
In improving cross-team alignment, security leaders can drastically increase productivity throughout all functions.
How does the technology work?
As with any security platform, not all cybersecurity asset management tools are created equal. While we can’t speak on behalf of every vendor, Noetic’s continuous cyber asset management platform connects to your existing cloud and on-premises data sources through agent-less connectors.
Out-of-the-box connectors include widely adopted systems to support the full asset management lifecycle. Examples include:
- Asset Discovery tools such as runZero 3.0
- Endpoint Security platforms such as SentinelOne
- Vulnerability Management support through Rapid7, Tenable and Qualys
- IT Asset Management (ITAM) software
- Patch Management tools including BigFix and Microsoft System Center Configuration (SCCM)
- Ticketing systems including Jira and ServiceNow
External feeds such internal policies, industry frameworks and references are also ingested to help organizations understand how their environment compares to the set of requirements defined by the user.
Getting Started with CAASM
No two companies are identical in the way that they implement technology. However, to make the adoption process as smooth as possible, be prepared to address the following questions when getting started on your buying journey:
What assets am I responsible for?
Gone are the days of measuring cyber risk according to the traditional IT landscape. CAASM or not, make sure you’re aligned with stakeholders on the assets and entities that fall within your scope of work. This should keep you aligned on which teams will need to get involved.
Have I secured cross-departmental support?
The full value of cyber asset attack surface management is in the company-wide security oversights that it provides. However, but a general resistance to employing new tools isn’t unusual among teams already dealing with an excess number of security tools.
Do I have a comprehensive list of desired data sources and associated access requirements?
CAASM has the potential to demonstrate immediate return on investments, contingent on the fact it’s able to access to all relevant data sources. Gather a consolidated list of all data that would be valuable to your dashboard so that you’re able to sort out any user access issues before onboarding begins.
Is this the best investment for my organization right now?
Understandably, you can’t make a clear and informed decision regarding investment without first comparing it to fellow emerging technologies as well as its predecessors. After all, this is the context on which true understanding and profitability rest.
How does CAASM compare to other technologies?
It may already be clear that the “hype” is warranted. However, in true CAASM style, you can’t make a clear and informed decision regarding investment here without first comparing the emerging tech to its security predecessors.
After all, this is the context on which true understanding and profitability rest, and it’s something that we’re going to help you get to the bottom with a simple comparison chart as follows:
| Primary Data Source | Primary Use Cases | |
|---|---|---|
| Cyber Asset Attack Surface Management (CAASM) | Any internal feed that provides information about business risk—from CrowdStrike to your own CMDB | Cyber Asset Management Internal Controls Monitoring Compliance Reporting and Auditing Vulnerability and Threat Management |
| External Attack Surface Management (EASM) | External, internet-facing feeds | Attack Surface Reduction Vulnerability Management |
| Digital Risk Protection Services (DRPS) | Open web, social media, the dark web and deep web | Data Leakage Detection Brand Reputation Monitoring |
| Application or API Attack Surface Management (AASM) | Application software | Rogue API Discovery Vulnerability Management (API-focused) |
CAASM vs EASM
EASM is focused primarily on external, internet-facing assets and networks. Modern success is dependent on considering external security assets alongside internal concerns. By providing this benefit, CAASM is better poised for comprehensive and effective security solutions.
CAASM vs DRPS
DRPS was created specifically for digital risk monitoring and management, whereas the focus of CAASM is to provide a comprehensive view of your entire cyber ecosystem.
CAASM vs. AASM
Similarly, CAASM differs from API surface management in the platform’s ability to prioritize all risks in order of their impact on the business, whereas AASM focuses primarily on application software.
All things considered, the level of visibility, context, and inclusivity that CAASM provides makes it a clear frontrunner when it comes to evaluating similar attack surface management tools.
What should I look for in a CAASM tool?
While virtually any CAASM vendor will provide benefits, there are many factors to consider during the evaluation process. When deciding on a vendor, consider the following questions:
- What does my environment consist of? Cloud assets, on-promises devices, or is it hybrid?
- Where does my asset inventory data currently live? Do I have a cumulative list of all hardware and software devices?
- How many security tools do I have in place. Which (if not all) do I want to ingest into the platform?
- Which teams will be involved? Which stage of the asset lifecycle process are they responsible for?
- Which sources provide the most context in terms of overall business risk?
- How does my incident response team currently assess the blast radius in the event of an incident?
- What security outcomes are most important to your organization?
The questions above will help give a better idea about what solution will best fit your needs based on the level of support, scalability and complexity of your infrastructure.
Ready to break the cycle of burdensome cyber asset management?
Join our next live demonstration for an insider’s look at how Noetic empowers teams to see, understand and optimize their cybersecurity posture.
