Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)

Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)

Traditional vulnerability management programs can no longer keep up with rapidly expanding attack surfaces. Organizations attempting to reduce their exposure to threats using siloed and tool-centric approaches are no longer effective. A continuous threat exposure management program is needed to stay ahead of growing and more sophisticated threats.

A CTEM program is a set of processes and capabilities enterprises use to evaluate the accessibility, exposure, and exploitability of their assets continually and consistently. A CTEM plan provides a consistent, actionable security posture for remediation and improvement. Operating within a specific time horizon, CTEM follows governance, risk, and compliance mandates and informs on shifts in long-term strategies, free of many real-time constraints imposed by threat detection and responses activities.

A CTEM cycle includes five steps: scoping, discovery, prioritization, validation, and mobilization. Organizations building a CTEM program use tools to inventory and categorize assets and vulnerabilities, simulate or test attack scenarios, and other forms of assessment processes and technologies. CTEM programs with automated pentesting and red teaming, when combined with External Attack Surface Management (EASM), enables a strong cybersecurity posture. These programs effectively identify and manage external-facing digital assets, and the security technology and processes that discover vulnerabilities to protect those assets.

Ridge Security CTEM support

A comprehensive CTEM program, with auto pentesting, red teaming and EASM security measures, enables greater visibility and control to overcome breaches, minimize risks, and increase security resilience. As part of an integrated CTEM program, Ridge Security’s RidgeBot^®, an automated pentest robot for risk-based vulnerability and risk management, acts like human attackers using sophisticated exploits. RidgeBot^® relentlessly locates exploits across an enterprise network, documents its findings, continuously measures results and effectiveness, and verifies vulnerabilities.

RidgeBot^® allows organizations to conduct automated pentesting from an attacker’s point of view. Before production, RidgeBot^® finds, assesses, prioritizes, and fixes a wide set of exposures before bad actors get to them. The resulting validation allows organizations to see what would happen in the event of an attack, how their defenses would cope, and how well the processes would perform.