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It comes as no surprise that today's cyber threats are orders of magnitude more complex than those of the past. And the ever-evolving tactics that attackers use demand the adoption of better, more holistic and consolidated ways to meet this non-stop challenge. Security teams constantly look for ways to reduce risk while improving security posture, but many approaches offer piecemeal solutions – zeroing in on one particular element of the evolving threat landscape challenge – missing the forest for the trees.  In the last few years, Exposure Management has become known as a comprehensive way of reigning in the chaos, giving organizations a true fighting chance to reduce risk and improve posture. In this article I'll cover what Exposure Management is, how it stacks up against some alternative approaches and why building an Exposure Management program should be on  your 2024 to-do list. What is Exposure Mana...

Cloud solutions are more mainstream – and therefore more exposed – than ever before. In 2023 alone, a staggering 82% of data breaches were against public, private, or hybrid cloud environments. What's more, nearly 40% of breaches spanned multiple cloud environments. The average cost of a cloud breach was above the overall average, at $4.75 million. In a time where cloud has become the de facto standard – with 65% of IT decision-makers confirming that cloud-based services are their first choice when upgrading or purchasing new solutions – despite its overwhelming prominence, cloud security still faces multiple challenges.  Security Challenges in the Cloud  One major hurdle is the lack of visibility. Unlike physical servers you can see and touch, cloud resources are often spread across vast networks, making it difficult to monitor for suspicious activity and leaving vulnerabilities undetected. Another challenge is the inconsistency across cloud vendor permission management s...

Imagine you're considering a new car for your family. Before making a purchase, you evaluate its safety ratings, fuel efficiency, and reliability. You might even take it for a test drive to ensure it meets your needs. The same approach should be applied to software and hardware products before integrating them into an organization's environment. Just as you wouldn't buy a car without knowing its safety features, you shouldn't deploy software without understanding the risks it introduces. The Rising Threat of Supply Chain Attacks Cybercriminals have recognized that instead of attacking an organization head-on, they can infiltrate through the software supply chain—like slipping counterfeit parts into an assembly line. According to the 2024 Sonatype State of the Software Supply Chain report , attackers are infiltrating open-source ecosystems at an alarming rate, with over 512,847 malicious packages detected last year alone—a 156% increase from the previous year. Traditional sec...

In a world of ever-expanding jargon, adding another FLA (Four-Letter Acronym) to your glossary might seem like the last thing you'd want to do. But if you are looking for ways to continuously reduce risk across your environment while making significant and consistent improvements to security posture, in our opinion, you probably want to consider establishing a  Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)  program.  CTEM is an approach to cyber risk management that combines attack simulation, risk prioritization, and remediation guidance in one coordinated process. The term Continuous Threat Exposure Management first appeared in the Gartner ® report, Implement a Continuous Threat Exposure Management Program (CTEM) (Gartner, 21 July 2022,). Since then, we have seen that organizations across the globe are seeing the benefits of this integrated, continual approach. Webinar: Why and How to Adopt the CTEM Framework XM Cyber is hosting a webinar featuring Gartner VP Ana...

In the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity, attackers are always searching for vulnerabilities and exploits within organizational environments. They don't just target single weaknesses; they're on the hunt for combinations of exposures and attack methods that can lead them to their desired objective. Despite the presence of numerous security tools, organizations often have to deal with two major challenges; First, these tools frequently lack the ability to effectively prioritize threats, leaving security professionals in the dark about which issues need immediate attention. Second, these tools often fail to provide context about how individual issues come together and how they can be leveraged by attackers to access critical assets. This lack of insight can lead organizations to either attempt to fix everything or, more dangerously, address nothing at all. In this article, we delve into 7 real-life attack path scenarios that our in-house experts encountered while utiliz...

If you're a cybersecurity professional, you're likely familiar with the sea of acronyms our industry is obsessed with. From CNAPP, to CWPP, to CIEM and all of the myriad others, there seems to be a new initialism born each day. In this article, we'll look at another trending acronym – CTEM, which stands for Continuous Threat Exposure Management – and the often-surprising challenges that come along with seeing a CTEM program through to maturity. While the concept of CTEM isn't brand spanking new, having made its in-print debut in July of 2022, we are now at the point where many organizations are starting to try to operationalize the programs that they've been setting into motion over the last few months. And as organizations start to execute their carefully designed plans, they may find themselves bumping up against some unexpected challenges which can lead to setbacks.  What is Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)? But first, to backtrack, let's just...