The Credentials Conundrum: Why Your Security Tools Are Introducing New Risk (and How External-Only EASM Solves It)
The Cost of Trust: The Hidden Vulnerability in Your Security Stack
In cybersecurity, we operate under a mistaken assumption: that the only way to gain visibility is through deep intrusion. To detect threats within your network, you first need to give access to the security vendor. The issue isn't just sharing a password; it's the requirement to install the digital lifeline, the connector, which makes that password effective.
Think about the profound level of trust you are forced to give your security vendors:
You grant your internal scanner administrative access via an installed agent to map your servers.
You provide your cloud security tool with an API key to access your sensitive SaaS platforms.
You install a permanent connector to enable EDR/XDR to monitor all endpoints and log every file.
Every agent, every API key, and every direct connector is a necessary yet highly privileged foothold inside your perimeter. It's a new piece of infrastructure—a new vulnerability—that expands the attack surface the very moment it's installed. You are forced into a terrible paradox: to reduce risk, you must introduce a brand new, highly privileged, and dangerous internal risk.
This trade-off is the root of the trust deficit. Leaders are exhausted by tools that demand deep, unnecessary intrusion to do their job.
A New Philosophy: Security Built on No Connectors
A security tool should never request access it doesn't need. A security assessment should review your defenses from the same perspective as a real attacker: from the outside, with zero knowledge. This is the principle that sets ThreatNG apart. Security should be based on restraint and transparency.
ThreatNG is an all-in-one External Attack Surface Management (EASM), Digital Risk Protection, and Security Ratings solution that performs purely external, unauthenticated discovery, using no connectors.
This "no connectors" approach is not a technical limitation; it's a philosophical mandate. It is the only proper way to Respect Boundaries and eliminate the fundamental paradox of introducing risk in the name of security.
The External-Only Difference: Intelligence without Invasion
How do we achieve deep, comprehensive intelligence without the intrusion of an agent or the risk of an API key? By replicating the attacker's perspective with absolute precision.
1. Eliminating the Credentials Disaster
A real attacker isn't logging into your network; they're looking for your mistakes in the open internet.
The Problem: Most tools would require a connector to integrate with your cloud or DevOps environment to find internal leaks.
The ThreatNG Solution: Our Code Repository Exposure module scans external platforms, including GitHub, for leaked AWS Secret Access Keys, Stripe API Keys, and SSH Private Keys. Crucially, this external assessment also includes Cloud and SaaS Discovery, enabling us to identify exposed assets and discover open storage buckets from the outside. We find the keys and the exposures before the attacker does, and we do it without needing a connector to your internal code base or cloud tenants.
2. Comprehensive Visibility Without the Agent
You need continuous monitoring of your entire digital footprint, but in the traditional security model, deep visibility always comes with strings attached: the agent, the internal scanner, the connector. This old model ensures that when you get a new insight, you also get a new point of failure and more operational friction.
The Problem: Traditional EASM or vulnerability management requires installing an agent or a complex API connector somewhere on your network. This introduces installation headaches, maintenance costs, and a constant fear that the connector itself will become the next vulnerability an attacker targets.
The ThreatNG Solution: ThreatNG delivers on all its promises without requiring any agents, internal scanners, or connectors: thorough discovery, vulnerability assessment, digital risk protection, and security ratings. We look at your assets entirely from the perspective of an attacker, using no connectors to achieve:
Continuous Discovery: Mapping your entire attack surface.
Vulnerability Assessment: Identifying external exposure to critical CVEs referencing its continuously updated Vulnerability Intelligence Repository (DarCache Vulnerability).
GRC Assessment: Evaluating compliance posture against frameworks like PCI DSS and NIST CSF.
This means you get a complete, continuous, and high-fidelity view of your external risk, and your team never has to use valuable time troubleshooting an internal agent or worrying about the security of a privileged connector. You gain comprehensive clarity while eliminating the risk of internal intrusion.
3. Defense Validation That Proves Effectiveness
How do you know your security controls are truly working? By testing them as an outsider would.
The Problem: Validating security controls like WAFs or MFA often requires internal logs or a dedicated testing tool that needs credentials.
The ThreatNG Solution: We actively detect the presence of beneficial security controls and validate these measures from the perspective of an external attacker. We assess your Subdomain Takeover Susceptibility by analyzing DNS records. All of this is achieved without an API key or any direct connection, providing objective, non-intrusive evidence of your defense strength.
The Reset: Security Built on Restraint
The industry needs a fundamental reset. Trust isn't earned by demanding more access; it’s earned by delivering powerful, actionable results while requiring less.
ThreatNG offers Security Without the Games. By committing to no connectors in everything the solution does, we eliminate complexity, we eliminate the need for credentials, and we eliminate the internal risk that your security tool becomes your next major vulnerability.
Stop negotiating with your own protection. Demand a solution that respects your boundaries and proves its value from the only perspective that matters: the attacker’s.