Audit-Ready External Intelligence
Audit-Ready External Intelligence is cybersecurity data gathered from outside an organization's network that is specifically structured, validated, and documented to meet the rigorous evidence requirements of formal compliance audits.
Unlike standard threat intelligence, which primarily focuses on alerting security teams to immediate threats, audit-ready intelligence serves two masters: the security operator and the external auditor. It bridges the gap between technical findings and regulatory frameworks (such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, CMMC, and GDPR) by ensuring that every piece of data collected can serve as admissible evidence of a specific security control's effectiveness or failure.
The Core Purpose
The primary goal of Audit-Ready External Intelligence is to eliminate the manual labor and subjectivity often associated with compliance audits. Instead of relying on spreadsheets and self-attestation, organizations use this intelligence to provide objective, third-party validation of their external security posture.
This approach transforms raw data into compliance artifacts. For example, identifying an exposed database is "intelligence." Identifying the same database, logging the date of discovery, mapping it to a specific Trust Services Criterion (such as Confidentiality), and documenting the automated remediation timestamp make it "audit-ready."
Key Characteristics of Audit-Ready Intelligence
To be considered "audit-ready," external intelligence must possess specific attributes that satisfy the scrutiny of a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) or regulatory examiner.
Objectivity: The data is derived from an "outside-in" perspective, simulating an adversary's view. This removes internal bias and provides an independent check on internal controls.
Traceability: Every finding includes a clear chain of evidence, including discovery timestamps, validation methods, and remediation history.
Control Mapping: Technical findings are automatically correlated to specific GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) controls. A missing security header is not just a vulnerability; it is flagged as a specific failure of a "System Configuration" control.
Longitudinal History: For "period-of-time" audits (like SOC 2 Type 2), the intelligence must provide a continuous log of performance over months, rather than a single snapshot.
False Positive Reduction: Auditors require reliable data. Audit-ready systems employ validation mechanisms to ensure that the evidence presented accurately reflects the environment, minimizing noise.
How It Supports Compliance Frameworks
Audit-Ready External Intelligence directly supports multiple pillars of modern compliance frameworks.
Asset Management and Discovery Most frameworks require a complete inventory of information assets. Audit-ready intelligence automates the creation of this inventory by continuously scanning the internet for subdomains, cloud buckets, and shadow IT, providing a dynamic, up-to-date list.
Continuous Monitoring Regulations increasingly demand "continuous monitoring" rather than annual checks. This intelligence meets this requirement by providing 24/7 monitoring of the attack surface and generating logs that demonstrate the organization remained vigilant throughout the audit period.
Vendor Risk Management Organizations are responsible for the security of their supply chain. Audit-Ready External Intelligence enables companies to conduct rigorous security assessments of their third-party vendors without requiring vendor cooperation, providing objective evidence of due diligence.
Benefits of Adopting Audit-Ready Intelligence
Organizations that utilize this specialized form of intelligence realize significant operational and strategic advantages.
Reduced Audit Fatigue: Teams spend less time manually gathering screenshots and evidence, as the system generates the necessary documentation automatically.
Higher Confidence: Executives and board members gain a realistic, evidence-based view of the company's risk posture, rather than relying on subjective internal reports.
Faster Remediation: Because findings are mapped to controls, technical teams understand the compliance implications of a vulnerability, often prioritizing fixes that impact audit status.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does Audit-Ready External Intelligence differ from a vulnerability scan? A vulnerability scan identifies technical flaws. Audit-Ready External Intelligence places those flaws in a business and regulatory context, adding historical tracking, evidence logging, and control mapping so the data can be used directly in an audit.
Can this intelligence replace an internal audit? No. It enhances the internal audit. Internal auditors use this data to validate their findings and test the effectiveness of the organization's controls without running manual penetration tests.
Is this only for SOC 2? No. While highly relevant for SOC 2, Audit-Ready External Intelligence applies to ISO 27001, NIST 800-53, GDPR, HIPAA, and any framework that requires evidence of external security controls and data protection.
Does it require installing agents? Typically, no. True external intelligence is gathered non-intrusively from the public internet, making it easier to deploy and enabling it to assess third-party vendors where installing agents is impossible.
How ThreatNG Delivers Audit-Ready External Intelligence
ThreatNG transforms the chaotic landscape of the public internet into Audit-Ready External Intelligence. Instead of providing raw, unstructured data that requires manual analysis, ThreatNG generates structured, evidence-based artifacts that map directly to compliance controls. By validating the organization's security posture from an adversarial perspective, it provides the independent verification auditors require for frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR.
External Discovery
A fundamental requirement of any audit is a complete and accurate asset inventory (e.g., SOC 2 Common Criteria 6.1). You cannot prove you are securing assets if you cannot document their existence. ThreatNG automates this inventory creation through purely external, unauthenticated discovery.
Agentless Inventory Generation: ThreatNG builds a comprehensive map of the digital estate without requiring installed agents or API connectors. This ensures that the "Audit Scope" includes everything visible to an attacker, not just what IT manages.
Shadow IT Identification: It detects assets created outside of formal procurement processes, such as marketing microsites or development environments on personal cloud accounts. Identifying these assets allows the organization to bring them into compliance before an auditor discovers them as a control failure.
Cloud & Supply Chain Enumeration: The solution identifies the third-party vendors and cloud infrastructure (e.g., AWS, Azure, Shopify) underpinning the attack surface. This acts as automated evidence for Vendor Risk Management programs, proving the organization knows exactly where its data resides.
External Assessment
ThreatNG performs detailed assessments on discovered assets to validate the "operating effectiveness" of security controls. These assessments provide the "Pass/Fail" evidence needed for specific audit criteria.
Web Application Hijack Susceptibility
This assessment produces evidence regarding the organization's configuration management and application security controls.
Audit-Ready Detail: ThreatNG scans subdomains for the presence of specific HTTP security headers: Content-Security-Policy (CSP), HTTP Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS), X-Content-Type, and X-Frame-Options.
Example of ThreatNG Helping: An auditor asks for proof that the organization mitigates client-side attacks (SOC 2 CC6.6). ThreatNG generates a report showing that 98% of subdomains have a valid CSP header enforced. For the 2% that fail, it provides a specific remediation list, demonstrating a functioning vulnerability management process.
Subdomain Takeover Susceptibility
This assessment validates controls related to Change Management and Availability.
Audit-Ready Detail: The platform performs DNS enumeration to identify "dangling" CNAME records—DNS entries that point to third-party services (like GitHub, Heroku, or AWS S3) that have been deleted or abandoned.
Example of ThreatNG Helping: During a SOC 2 Type 2 observation period, ThreatNG detects a
campaign.company.comsubdomain pointing to an unclaimed AWS S3 bucket. It flags this immediately. The security team removes the record. The audit log shows the detection and the remediation timestamp, proving that the "System Decommissioning" control is active and effective.
Data Leak and Privacy Susceptibility
This assessment provides direct evidence for Confidentiality and Privacy principles.
Audit-Ready Detail: ThreatNG scans the open web for sensitive data that has slipped through Data Loss Prevention (DLP) controls. It looks for files in open cloud buckets, secrets in code repositories, and Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in archived web pages.
Example of ThreatNG Helping: To satisfy the Privacy criterion (P1.1), an organization must prevent the unauthorized disclosure of personal data. ThreatNG identifies an archived page from 2018 containing a list of customer emails. The organization requests a takedown. This finding and subsequent action serve as evidence that the organization actively monitors for and cleans up data spills.
Reporting
ThreatNG converts technical findings into compliance-grade documentation.
Security Ratings: The platform assigns letter grades (A-F) to key risk categories. These ratings provide a quantifiable metric that Boards and auditors can understand, serving as a high-level summary of the control environment's health.
Compliance Mapping: Reports specifically correlate technical flaws (like "Open Port 22") to governance requirements. This saves compliance teams hours of manual mapping, allowing them to hand an auditor a report that effectively says, "Here is the evidence for Control CC7.1."
Continuous Monitoring
For audits that span a period of time (such as SOC 2 Type 2), a single scan is insufficient. ThreatNG provides the longitudinal data necessary to prove continuous compliance.
Drift Detection: ThreatNG establishes a baseline of the "known good" state and alerts on any deviation. If a firewall rule change accidentally exposes a database, ThreatNG detects the "drift" instantly.
Historical Evidence: The platform maintains a history of security ratings and findings. This allows the organization to show an auditor a 12-month trend line, proving that security controls were maintained consistently throughout the year, not just fixed the week before the audit.
Investigation Modules
When an auditor questions a specific finding or risk, ThreatNG’s investigation modules provide the deep-dive context required to explain the issue and the mitigating controls.
Domain Intelligence
This module provides evidence of Brand Protection and Incident Response capabilities.
Investigation Detail: It analyzes domain permutations to find typo-squatted domains and checks for active mail records (MX).
Example: An auditor asks how the organization handles phishing risks. The team uses ThreatNG to show a list of identified typo-squats that were analyzed and blocked. The presence of "Mail Records" on a typo-domain triggers the block, demonstrating a logic-based, defensible incident response process.
Subdomain Intelligence
This module provides granular evidence of Patch Management and Vendor Oversight.
Investigation Detail: It breaks down the technology stack (e.g., identifying an outdated WordPress version) and hosting environment for specific subdomains.
Example: To prove "Vulnerability Management" (CC7.1), the team uses ThreatNG to identify a legacy marketing portal running on an unsupported server. The module identifies the hosting provider and the software version. The team uses this data to decommission the asset. The audit trail—Discovery, Investigation, Decommissioning—is complete.
Intelligence Repositories
ThreatNG enriches audit evidence with external threat data, proving that the organization uses a "Risk-Based Approach" (a requirement of modern frameworks) rather than a generic checklist.
DarCache Dark Web: Monitors for compromised credentials. Evidence of detecting and resetting compromised passwords proves the "Logical Access" control is reactive to external threats.
DarCache Ransomware: Tracks ransomware tactics. This intelligence justifies why certain patches were prioritized over others, showing the auditor a sophisticated, intelligence-led patch management strategy.
Complementary Solutions
ThreatNG acts as the "External Validator" in the security stack, feeding objective evidence into internal systems to create a unified compliance ecosystem.
Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) Platforms
ThreatNG automates the evidence collection process for GRC tools.
Cooperation: The GRC platform defines the control (e.g., "All public websites must be encrypted"). ThreatNG performs the test (Scanning SSL certificates).
Example: ThreatNG runs a monthly scan of all subdomains. It pushes the results to the GRC dashboard. If all sites pass, the GRC control is automatically marked "Effective," and the ThreatNG report is attached as the artifact, removing the need for human intervention.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
ThreatNG provides the external context that internal logs lack.
Cooperation: The SIEM monitors internal traffic; ThreatNG monitors external exposure.
Example: ThreatNG identifies a "High Risk" data leak in a public code repository. It sends an alert to the SIEM. The SIEM correlates this with internal logs to see which developer pushed the code. This end-to-end visibility—from internal push to external leak—demonstrates a mature, comprehensive monitoring capability to auditors.
Vulnerability Management (VM) Systems
ThreatNG ensures the VM system is scanning the correct targets.
Cooperation: VM systems scan known IP addresses. ThreatNG finds unknown or new assets.
Example: ThreatNG discovers a new cloud environment spun up by a dev team (Shadow IT). It feeds the VM system with IP addresses. The VM system then authenticates and scans for OS-level vulnerabilities. This integration demonstrates to auditors that the "Asset Inventory" and "Vulnerability Scanning" processes are tightly coupled and free of gaps.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does ThreatNG make intelligence "Audit-Ready"? ThreatNG structures the data to answer specific auditor questions. It includes timestamps, severity ratings, and clear descriptions of the impact, and often maps findings directly to compliance criteria (like Confidentiality or Availability), turning a "bug" into a "control finding."
Can ThreatNG help with the "Privacy" criteria in audits? Yes. By scanning for Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in archived web pages and public repositories, ThreatNG provides evidence that the organization is actively monitoring for and remediating data privacy leaks, a key requirement for GDPR and SOC 2 Privacy controls.
Does ThreatNG replace the need for a penetration test? No, but it makes the penetration test more effective and audit-compliant. ThreatNG handles the continuous, automated reconnaissance and surface monitoring, allowing the penetration testers to focus on deep-dive exploitation. Using both satisfies requirements for "Continuous Monitoring" and "Periodic Penetration Testing."
