Continuous ASV Monitoring

Continuous ASV (Approved Scanning Vendor) Monitoring is an ongoing security practice that goes beyond the traditional quarterly ASV scan requirement for PCI DSS compliance. It's an approach that ensures an organization's external-facing systems are constantly monitored for vulnerabilities and changes that could impact their security posture and PCI compliance.

Key Aspects and Benefits

While PCI DSS mandates an ASV scan at least once every three months, a lot can happen in that time. New vulnerabilities can be discovered, or a change in a network configuration can inadvertently expose a system. Continuous ASV monitoring addresses this by providing real-time or near-real-time visibility.

The main benefits of this practice include:

• Proactive Vulnerability Management: Instead of waiting for the following quarterly scan, organizations can immediately identify and address new vulnerabilities as they appear. This significantly reduces the window of opportunity for attackers to exploit a weakness.

• Reduced Risk of Data Breach: By maintaining a continuous security posture, organizations lower their overall risk of a data breach. The constant monitoring helps in quickly detecting and mitigating potential entry points into the cardholder data environment (CDE).

• Streamlined Compliance: Continuous monitoring makes the quarterly ASV scan a much more straightforward process. By addressing issues as they arise, organizations can avoid the "scramble" to fix all vulnerabilities just before the compliance deadline, making it easier to maintain a passing status.

• Efficient Resource Use: Security teams can focus on new and critical threats rather than spending time on manual, periodic checks. The automated nature of continuous monitoring allows for a more efficient use of security personnel and resources.

Continuous ASV Monitoring transforms the process of meeting PCI DSS Requirement 11.3 from a periodic, point-in-time check into a dynamic, ongoing security function. It helps organizations not only to be compliant but to be genuinely secure in the face of an ever-changing threat landscape.

ThreatNG helps organizations with continuous ASV monitoring by providing an attacker's perspective on their external footprint, which extends far beyond traditional quarterly ASV scans. It's designed to identify and manage external risks in real-time, helping to maintain a robust security posture.

External Discovery & Assessment

ThreatNG’s external discovery capability is a foundational element that helps organizations with continuous ASV monitoring. It performs purely external, unauthenticated discovery using no connectors. This mirrors a hacker's perspective and uncovers "shadow IT," or previously unmanaged assets, that are exposed to the internet and could serve as a gateway into the cardholder data environment (CDE).

This discovery is followed by detailed external assessments that identify and evaluate specific vulnerabilities. For example, ThreatNG can perform a scan and find an exposed database port on a subdomain. This is a critical finding because an open port can be an entry point for an attacker. The platform also identifies misconfigurations, such as a subdomain missing a Content Security Policy (CSP) header, which could lead to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. Such findings are directly relevant to PCI DSS controls for web application security.

Reporting & Continuous Monitoring

ThreatNG provides several types of reports. A key report is the External GRC Assessment Mappings report, which offers clear, actionable insights by mapping findings directly to PCI DSS controls. This helps organizations translate technical vulnerabilities into a compliance context for auditors and security teams. For instance, the report might highlight that an exposed Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) port constitutes a direct violation of PCI DSS requirements for network segmentation and access control.

The platform’s continuous monitoring is what truly enables continuous ASV monitoring, shifting compliance from a point-in-time check to an ongoing process. ThreatNG constantly observes an organization's external attack surface, digital risk, and security ratings. This means that if a new vulnerability is discovered or a change in network configuration accidentally exposes a system, the organization is alerted immediately. This proactive approach enables them to address issues before the following quarterly ASV scan, thereby preventing compliance failures and reducing the window of opportunity for attackers.

Investigation Modules

ThreatNG's investigation modules enable a deep-dive analysis of discovered findings, providing the necessary context for effective remediation. For example, the Sensitive Code Exposure module scours public code repositories and mobile apps for exposed credentials and secrets. An example would be finding a plaintext password for a test environment in a public GitHub repository. This finding provides a direct path to a potential CDE-related asset, validating the risk and making it a high priority to address. The Search Engine Exploitation module helps organizations identify information exposed through search engines. For example, it could find publicly accessible administrative pages or private user data, which directly relates to PCI DSS controls for secure authentication and data protection.

Intelligence Repositories

ThreatNG’s intelligence repositories, branded as DarCache, are continuously updated and provide critical context that is crucial for continuous ASV monitoring. For example, DarCache Vulnerability delivers a holistic view of external risks by combining data from the National Vulnerability Database (NVD), the Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS), and the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. This enables an organization to prioritize vulnerabilities not only based on their severity, but also on whether they are being actively exploited in the wild.

Complementary Solutions

ThreatNG's capabilities can be enhanced with complementary solutions.

• Vulnerability Management Platforms: ThreatNG's external assessments can be fed into an organization's internal vulnerability management platform. For instance, if ThreatNG identifies a critical vulnerability on a public-facing server that is part of the CDE, the internal team can use this external context to prioritize the patch immediately over other less critical internal vulnerabilities.

• SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) Platforms: The findings from ThreatNG's continuous monitoring can be integrated into a SIEM platform. For instance, if ThreatNG identifies a newly exposed non-standard port, the SIEM can be configured to alert on any network traffic to that port. This creates a synergy where external intelligence from ThreatNG helps a SIEM identify internal anomalies, thereby improving an organization’s ability to detect and respond to potential security incidents.