Attack Surface Reduction: Why It's Essential for Your Business

The attack surface of a company refers to all the points where an unauthorized user or malicious entity could potentially exploit or breach the organization's security. It encompasses all the entry points in a company's systems, networks, applications, and devices that could be targeted by cyber threats.

Attack surface reduction involves identifying and closing the potential entry points to minimize the risk of a successful cyberattacks. From a technical standpoint, reducing the attack surface involves examining open services, ports, and exposed applications, API etc. It also includes asking questions like whether these services can be relocated to a militarized zone or a private network without causing disruptions to the overall system.

Real World Example:

The report, submitted on March 2, 2020, to Shopify by the user "rhynorater," highlighted an exposed Slinky Instance Admin Panel on a server. After Shopify acknowledged and addressed the issue, they rewarded the reporter with a $500 bounty, recognizing the potential impact on merchants if the application had been in production use. The report was disclosed on January 16, 2021, with the weakness identified as "Improper Authentication - Generic."

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Similarly This report, submitted on February 23, 2023, to the U.S. Dept of Defense by the user "abhhinavsecondary," identified an exposed HAProxy stats panel externally accessible at https://host.com/haproxy-status. The impact included the potential disclosure of statistics. The Department of Defense acknowledged and triaged the report, The vulnerability was validated and resolved by the system owner.

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Both of these reports underscore the importance of continuously monitoring the attack surface and minimizing it to the extent that interfaces like these should be restricted from public access.

How can snapsec help ?

We at snapsec.co help companies to do full automated attack surface management using our Snapsec Suite, It is a robust and comprehensive cybersecurity platform designed to assist organizations in enhancing their security posture through effective attack surface reduction. By employing advanced technologies and methodologies, this platform offers a suite of tools and features aimed at identifying and mitigating potential vulnerabilities within an organization's digital infrastructure.

1. Asset Enumeration: Snapsec Suite scans and identifies all the assets in your organization, providing a bird's eye view of your infrastructure. This includes enumerating your exposed APIs, Web Servers, Web Services, Dashboards and almost eveyrthing that can be technically reached out.

2. Entry Point Enumeration: Once the assets are collected, Each assets is scanned for potential entry points on, such as open ports, services, and dependencies and more.

3. Centralized Dashboard: Once the data collection is completed, the data is presented in an asset catalog which allow companies to view all the exposed assets on a centralized dashboard, making it easier to keep track of them.

4. Vulnerability Scanning: Upon completion of data collection, the vulnerability scanning process is initiated. The findings are then organized and presented in an asset catalog accessible through a centralized dashboard in our vulnerabilty management portal.

5. AI Report Writing: With our suite, each vulnerability identified automatically generates a comprehensive report using AI technology. This eliminates the need for manual report writing, streamlining the process. These reports are then seamlessly sent to the Vulnerability Management System integrated within the suite.

6. Continuous Process: The practice of reducing attack surfaces isn't a single occurrence; it demands ongoing monitoring and mitigation to proactively address evolving threats. Therefore, our Suite enables you to schedule these scans throughout the year for consistent surveillance and action.

In conclusion, attack surface reduction is a crucial aspect of cybersecurity that every business should prioritize. By using tools like Snapsec Suite, companies can identify and mitigate potential vulnerabilities, reducing the risk of a successful cyberattack.

Book a demo

To learn more about how Snapsec can help secure your business, contact us at [email protected] or book a demo meeting at https://snapsec.co/contact-us.html.