The hype around various security categories can make it difficult to distinguish features from bias when researching new platforms. You want to move forward with your security measures, but what steps actually make sense for your business?
For those ready to find Attack Surface Management (ASM) VendorsPlease review these 6 questions before understanding the key features you want from an ASM platform and the qualities of the vendors that support them.
Use them as a quick guide to interviewing vendors to choose the best ASM platform for your needs.
Checklist: 6 Questions to Ask Your Attack Surface Management Vendor
- Does your platform have the ability to discover the unknown?
- How can you prevent alert fatigue, prioritize alerts, and eliminate false positives?
- Can you track changes in your attack surface over time?
- How do you plan to evolve the platform in the future?
- What services do you offer in relation to ASM?
- Can I demo or test run the platform?
Let’s take a closer look at each.
1. Does your platform have the ability to detect unknown assets?
Inventorying assets has always been difficult. Attack surface management tools may have limited capabilities focused solely on identifying well-known assets such as IP addresses, domains, software, and other known resources. However, some of the best attack surface management platforms today have the ability to find and protect both known and unknown Internet-facing assets, which is critical for an effective ASM tool. is a requirement.
2. How can I prevent alert fatigue, prioritize alerts, and eliminate false positives?
Discovering assets with attack surface management is a big deal. Prioritizing alerts and focusing remediation efforts creates real value.
Top ASM tools address alert fatigue by incorporating human analysis of vulnerabilities in the context of the client’s business. In this way, clients can receive remediation efforts focused only on high-severity vulnerabilities, rather than the typical outcome of receiving a PDF with an extensive list of alerts.
3. Can you track changes in the attack surface over time?
Traditionally, tracking the attack surface required annual or periodic penetration testing. However, this approach lacked the ability to keep up with rapidly expanding attack surfaces and threats that could emerge at any time.
Organizations can achieve better results by combining external and network penetration tests instead of relying on occasional penetration tests. Continuous Attack Surface Management. This approach enables teams to effectively monitor the growing attack surface and identify vulnerabilities as they emerge.
4. How do you plan to evolve the platform in the future?
Partnerships between ASM vendors and their clients benefit from a collaborative approach to continuously improve platform capabilities. A good attack surface management vendor actively listens to customer feedback to drive feature development and platform improvements. Considering their input allows our dedicated team of software engineers to roll out new updates and features that consistently improve the functionality of the ASM platform.
5. What services do you offer in relation to ASM?
For organizations to continuously evolve their offensive security strategy, it is beneficial to have features and capabilities that go beyond attack surface management and encompass relevant market categories.
When choosing an ASM platform, it’s helpful to consider additional features such as breach and attack simulation, penetration testing as a service, and application security testing. These capabilities extend the reach and effectiveness of ASM, enabling organizations to strengthen their overall security posture.
6. Can I demo or test run the platform?
Beware of vendors that don’t provide demos. ASM vendors typically offer on-demand demos of their platforms, as well as helpful how-to resources and conversations with subject matter experts to ensure your business needs are met. . You can also see his UX of the platform and assess its usability by doing a demo before buying. A user-friendly design and an easy-to-understand dashboard are essential for a working ASM tool.
Keep these six questions in your pocket when evaluating attack surface management platforms. The nuances in scaling aggressive security measures can make or break a successful engagement. As such, the ASM platform should:
- Ability to discover the unknown
- Built-in human analytics to prioritize alerts
- Ability to track changes in the attack surface over time
- Expertise in developing new features based on business needs
- Capabilities beyond ASM to relevant market categories
- Demo ready to show clean and easy to use UX
See NetSPI’s attack surface management platform in action. This on-demand demo.
