Traditional vulnerability management programs are no longer keeping up with expanding attack surfaces. Reducing exposure to growing threats using siloed security approaches is no longer viable. CTEM is a more effective path to stay ahead of sophisticated threats.
Continuous Threat Exposure Management, or CTEM, security and risk management practices align with business goals to minimize risk, improve efficiency, and automate compliance. Organizations gain a continuous view of their vulnerability exposures, make informed decisions and prioritize their resources to protect against their expanding threat landscape.
CTEM encompasses people, processes, and technology
A CTEM program encompasses people, processes, and technology to continually evaluate, defend, and mitigate threats associated with the accessibility, exposure, and exploitability of their assets. CTEM provides a consistent, actionable security posture for remediation and improvement. It also follows governance, risk, and compliance mandates.
Cybersecurity products that support a CTEM program
Organizations implementing a CTEM program employ technology products that inventory and categorize assets and vulnerabilities. For example, products that discover assets, simulate and test attack scenarios, and secure cloud workloads.
An organization with a strong cybersecurity posture constantly tests its infrastructure and security defenses to validate its strengths and weaknesses. A CTEM program with auto pentesting, red teaming, and EASM security measures enables greater visibility and control to reduce breaches, minimize risks, and increase security resilience.
Ridge Security CTEM support
RidgeBot
- RidgeBot auto-discovers assets for management within the CTEM program and enables organizations to conduct automated pentesting from an attacker’s point of view.
- Within DevOps, and when apps and systems are in production, RidgeBot finds, assesses, prioritizes, and fixes a wide set of exposures before bad actors find them.
- Validation allows organizations to see what would happen during an attack, how their defenses would cope, and how well the processes would perform.
- Security health checks and scores provide a history of activities and trends with a snapshot of an organization’s exposure risk and security posture.
- RidgeBot ACE conducts simulation attack scenarios for endpoint security, data exfiltration, and Active Directory information reconnaissance.
RidgeShield
- RidgeShield agents are installed into cloud application workloads running on top of operating systems to protect an organization’s assets within cloud environments.
- Secures cloud workloads with security controls and continuous monitoring, using OS best practices from Microsoft and Linux.
- Exposure management capabilities look for deviations against baseline checks, and when deviations are found, RidgeShield alerts security teams.
Ridge Security supports your Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) program
As mentioned, a CTEM program comprises people, processes, and technology. Ridge Security’s RidgeBot and RidgeShield are security products and technology enablers for CTEM. Below are the five stages of the CTEM program and how Ridge Security plays a part in each stage.
Scoping
Identifies threat surfaces and potential vectors to be included within the CTEM program. Threat vectors, such as social engineering, credential theft, and vulnerability exploits, are avenues for attackers to enter a network and attack applications and systems. In the scoping stage, organizations determine the critical assets and infrastructure that, if breached, could have the most impact on their operations.
As part of an integrated CTEM program, RidgeBot automated pentest ethical hacking acts like human attackers using sophisticated exploits.
RidgeBot relentlessly locates exploits across an enterprise network, documents findings, continuously measures results and effectiveness and verifies vulnerabilities. RidgeBot automatically detects the attack surface, lists attack surfaces and runs multiple tests to show a historical trend.
Discovery
Security teams identify all assets and evaluate their risk profiles. This includes finding hidden and explicit vulnerabilities and identifying their potential impact on business operations. RidgeBot automatically discovers assets and infrastructure elements that are within the CTEM program.
Prioritization
Identifies security infrastructure gaps and weaknesses and determines where to focus remediation efforts and resources for maximum impact. RidgeBot prioritizes vulnerabilities and, more importantly, exposes and prioritizes exploitable vulnerabilities.
Validation
The process verifies the organization’s overall cybersecurity posture by launching controlled attack simulations and adversary emulations within DevOps and production environments. Security control validations, including attack surface management, vulnerability management, and security posture management, are all functions that RidgeBot provides.
Mobilization
Identifies and brings together all stakeholders (including the project team and business leads), CTEM organizational structure, the approval process for changes, the commitment of required resources, and the agreed timelines. After identifying attack surface risks, the CTEM is mobilized to mitigate those risks. RidgeBots is a technology enabler that helps the CTEM team find risks in DevOps and production elements and create trouble tickets and alerts for mitigation. For example, RidgeBot can be integrated with GitHub, Jira, Jenkins, ServiceNow, and others to alert DevOps teams to take action.
With Ridge Security’s advanced solutions, you can bolster your CTEM program and proactively protect your organization’s assets against emerging threats. Stay ahead of the curve, minimize risks, and enhance your security resilience with Ridge Security.
Contact us today to learn more.