A critical part of an organization’s overall cybersecurity strategy, Attack Surface Management (ASM) helps organizations to: This article describes ASM is, including why it is needed and how it works. At the end, I’ll discuss how software solutions can automate attack surface management. (This article was written by Shanika Wickramasinghe. See more of Shanika's contributions to Splunk Learn.)

The threat landscape in the financial services sector continues to get more menacing. Malicious actors and cybercrime groups increasingly set their sights on the sensitive financial data that banks, moneylenders, insurance companies, credit unions, and more all store in their IT environments. Exemplifying the challenge, one recent study found that the financial sector experienced the second-highest volume of data breaches in 2022.

Informer, a leading external attack surface management SaaS platform, is delighted to announce that Forrester has named the company in its External Attack Surface Management Landscape, Q1 2023 report. External attack surface management (EASM) has become a critical aspect of modern security-minded organizations’ overall cybersecurity strategy.

Attack surface management (ASM) is becoming increasingly important for businesses today. The attack surface is expanding and becoming more complex than ever before, driven by numerous factors, including the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting shift to remote work, widespread cloud adoption and the resulting growth of shadow IT, increased use of managed services (SaaS), and third-party vendor services.

Attack surface management (ASM) and vulnerability management (VM) are often confused, but they’re not the same. The primary difference between the two is scope: Attack surface management and external attack surface management (EASM) assume that a company has many unknown assets and therefore begin with discovery. Vulnerability management, on the other hand, operates on the list of known assets.

Resilient cybersecurity posture can only be achieved with a full understanding of your internal and external attack surface. CrowdStrike Falcon® Surface builds on our award-winning adversary intelligence with cutting-edge external attack surface management (EASM) capabilities for a complete picture of known and unknown externally exposed assets, all delivered via the unified CrowdStrike Falcon® platform.

The emergence of cloud computing transformed the nature of IT ecosystems and infrastructure in many beneficial ways. From cost savings to flexibility to unparalleled scalability, the cloud’s advantages are well-documented. But it’s important not to overlook the fact that migrating to the cloud introduces many new points where unauthorized hackers can try to enter and launch a cyber-attack.

The role of a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in cybersecurity is to ensure that the organization’s technology infrastructure and systems are secure and protected against cyber threats. This involves implementing and overseeing security measures and policies, monitoring network activity for potential threats, and managing the response to any security incidents that may occur.