Which is the Best Fit for Your Organization?
The average time to identify and contain a breach in 2020 was 280 days.
How long would does it take your team to identify and contain breaches?
With the dramatic recent rise in remote work and the increase in cyber attacks –in both frequency and sophistication–it’s even more important than ever for organizations to ensure their operations are adequately protected and are meeting their KPI targets.
Having full, real-time visibility of your network is a big part of that: the quicker you can identify threats, the less potential exposure to your organ 4 ization, and streamline your workloads.
That’s where Attack Surface Management (ASM) programs come in. But with all the overlapping technologies, Snake Oil and Fluff out there, how do you know which products give you the best value? While many ASM platforms promise the same thing, discerning IT leaders can determine which are truly worth the investment and align their cybersecurity “stack” better without adding more confusion.
We’ve assembled this comparison guide to help SecOps teams sift through the noise, to determine which ASM tools are worth investing in, and which are a waste of time. Putting programs side by side and weighing pros and cons, your SecOps team will be able to get a more clear picture of what’s needed.
The Problem
Organizations worldwide are facing a notable increase in attempted data breaches and cyber-attacks. Juggling limited IT resources with the recent shortages of available formally trained cybersecurity experts only exacerbates this problem.
Here’s the good news: implementing a fully-loaded ASM tool can equip a SecOps team without having to add to headcount.
Why Today’s IT Teams Need an ASM Tool
- Limited Visibility: Many organizations lack a clear picture of their cybersecurity posture. An overwhelmingly wide variety of tools is required to completely protect the perimeter, network, applications, data, and critical assets in today’s organizations. Unfortunately, these tools rarely share data and leave imperceptible gaps and overlaps that aren’t clearly outlined. The data that exists is rarely complete, rarely current, and always missing context. The ability to see through the noise and have one clearly defined picture of the truth is invaluable to the effectiveness of an IT team.
- Inefficiency of SIEM and SOAR Toolsets: It’s not surprising that many SIEM and SOAR tools promise the same things: top-level collecting, monitoring, and analysis of an organization’s security data. In reality, many of these programs are simply not built to present this information accurately or completely. Taking a peek behind the curtain of far too many organizations, you can see that once these programs are implemented, the actual data presented is not accurate, complete, or current. An ASM platform, however, is able to combine the power of SIEM and SOAR tools, as well as Endpoint Detection and Response, Network Detection and Response, User and Entity Behavioral Analysis, and Threat Intelligence. This consolidation of toolsets enables teams to monitor an accurate view of their cybersecurity landscape (instead of empty promises).
- Missing Context: Without context, an IT team’s ability to accurately interpret data becomes crippled. Context is a crucial element in making sense of available information, and without it, decision-making becomes a risky guessing game. An ASM platform enables teams to quickly and clearly interpret the data in their networks, with a reliable picture of what the situation reveals and what matters most. This context allows for more effective decision-making and more accurate prioritization of threats based on real-time information.
What to Look for in an ASM Tool
In an overly saturated cybersecurity market, it can be difficult to sift through the noise and determine which tools are a waste of your time and resources, and which are not.
Here are the top identifiers of an Attack Surface Management toolset worth your financial investment.
- Threat Hunting: Gain the ability to search within your network to discover, isolate and contextualize threats so your analysts can deploy countermeasures quickly to reduce exposure, and mitigate defensive weaknesses before a threat becomes a breach.
- Incident Response: Put everything into actionable context for your cyber operators: the nature of the incident, the devices involved, the zones affected, and data exfiltration routes, so your SecOps team can prioritize and accelerate the response.
- Vulnerability Scanning: Simplifying network vulnerability detection by issuing commands to your cybersecurity tools and combining the results with more than 130 data and information sources to create a comprehensive view of the risks to your network.
- Multiple Source Overlay (MSO): MSO technology elevates and streamlines the operations of an IT department by siloing resources together for detection, investigation, and remediation. Simply put, it’s the feed that top-tier attack surface analysis platforms interpret to easily visualize, investigate and respond to attacks in real-time across a cyber landscape.
- Integrations: A worthy ASM toolset will integrate seamlessly with your existing tools and processes –and may even reduce overall programs needed. Without the ability to integrate with a wide variety of cybersecurity tools, the visibility and benefit you gain from an ASM program will be greatly reduced.
- Comprehensive Onboarding: Implementing a new Attack Surface Management tool is a critical piece of your cybersecurity landscape. Regardless of the experience level of your team members, without thorough training and onboarding, the effectiveness of your tool will be greatly reduced. In order to take full advantage of any new program, there must be onboarding so your team is enabled to use it to its full potential.
- Embedded ML / AI: Embedding ML/AI vastly reduces the load on your operators. Existing products can add load to an already saturated operator, so streamlining their workload with the ML / AI capability can dramatically decrease confusion and get to the answer quicker.
Available Solutions on the Market Compared
Option A:
A top competitor on the Attack Surface Management landscape, Option A is a quickly deployable cloud-based option, featuring comprehensive asset discovery, vulnerability scanning, and multiple attack vectors.
Strengths:
- Quick Deployment: A quick and seamless deployment of the program, translating to saved hours and resources, and a speedy ramp-up for your team.
- Multiple Attack Vectors Scanned: For the best possible visibility of your network, it’s vital to have multiple attack vectors scanned as often as possible.
Weaknesses:
- No MSO: Without Multiple Source Overlay, Option A cannot provide complete, accurate, real-time data, which will heavily impact your team’s actionable decision-making
- Limited Data Sources: Option A’s limited number of data sources reduces the potential visibility of a network’s assets.
Option B:
Option B offers a managed services ASM solution, partnering with organizations to provide visibility of assets and vulnerabilities.
Strengths:
- Asset Discovery: With Option B’s asset discovery capabilities, organizations are able to monitor the assets on their network.
- Vulnerability Scanning: Option B provides continual scanning to provide organizations an inside look into the potential zones of vulnerability.
Weaknesses:
- No MSO: Without Multiple Source Overlay, Option B cannot provide complete, accurate, real-time data, which will heavily impact your team’s actionable decision-making
- No Intrusion Detection: Option B’s lack of intrusion detection creates an incomplete solution, leaving vulnerabilities rather than answers, and requiring extras to complete an organization’s tool stack, rather than reducing tools.
Option C:
Providing increased visibility into assets, vulnerabilities, and threats, Option C offers an ASM platform based in the Cloud, with an emphasis on threat remediation.
Strengths:
- Intrusion Detection: With Option B’s asset discovery capabilities, organizations are able to easily and effectively expose intrusions and threats.
- Vulnerability Scanning: Option C provides continual scanning to provide organizations an inside look into the potential zones of vulnerability.
Weaknesses:
- No MSO: Without Multiple Source Overlay, Option C cannot provide complete, accurate, real-time data, which will heavily impact your team’s actionable decision-making
- Fewer Integrations: While Option C integrates with several main technologies, they lack a crucial ability to integrate with many others.
CLAW by CybernetIQ:
A military-grade attack surface analysis platform trusted by organizations worldwide, CLAW was created by top cybersecurity experts with decades of experience in the field, and a solid choice for organizations prioritizing threat detection, vulnerability scanning, and actionable data.
Strengths:
- MSO: CLAW provides a 360-degree view of the by collecting, transforming the data across your entire IT Infrastructure from network, endpoints, users, cloud to applications.
- 150+ Integrations: CLAW integrates with over 150 cybersecurity tools (and growing), so your toolset is easily monitored and maintained.
- Speed of the Analyst and Accuracy of Network modeling: these remain key differentiators in a space that is hungry for a SOC solution that doesn’t suck.
Weaknesses:
- We got our start in Canada (though we’re global now)
The Solution
What difference could it make for your organization to have full visibility of your network?
How could the increased speed and accuracy in identifying and prioritizing threats impact your operations
Attack Surface Management allows organizations to bring their teams, technologies, and tradecraft into sharp focus with one powerful platform. If you’re ready to consolidate and coordinate your cybersecurity stack, we’d love to talk. Schedule a demo to find out how CLAW by CybernetIQ can give you a real-time, immersive view of your entire network.