Continuous Threat Exposure Management Platform
A Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) Platform in cybersecurity is a unified, closed-loop technology solution that operationalizes the CTEM framework across an organization's entire digital estate. Its primary function is to transform traditional, periodic, and reactive security practices (like vulnerability scanning) into a proactive, continuous, and threat-informed program.
Unlike siloed point solutions, a CTEM platform integrates and coordinates several capabilities to systematically manage risk in five continuous phases:
1. Scoping and Discovery
The platform continuously maps and maintains an accurate inventory of the entire attack surface. This includes all internal assets, cloud environments (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), external-facing infrastructure, code repositories, shadow IT, and third-party dependencies.
Key Capability: External Attack Surface Management (EASM) capabilities are foundational, discovering assets from an unauthenticated, attacker's perspective.
2. Prioritization
This is the most critical function, shifting the focus from technical severity (e.g., CVSS score) to risk-based prioritization. The platform correlates discovered exposures (vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, identity issues) with real-world threat intelligence.
Key Capability: A Risk Scoring Engine uses threat intelligence feeds (e.g., CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities—KEV, or Exploit Prediction Scoring System—EPSS) and business context (asset criticality) to rank exposures based on their likelihood of being exploited in the wild and their potential business impact.
3. Validation
The platform confirms whether a prioritized exposure is actually exploitable and what the consequence would be. This validation is done safely to measure the true risk and test the efficacy of current defenses.
Key Capability: Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) or automated security validation tools simulate real-world attack techniques (like those from the MITRE ATT&CK framework) to verify attack paths and security control failures.
4. Mobilization and Remediation
This phase involves transforming validated exposures into actionable, trackable security tasks. The CTEM platform facilitates cross-functional collaboration required to implement fixes.
Key Capability: Automated Remediation Workflows integrate directly with IT Service Management (ITSM) tools (e.g., ServiceNow) and vulnerability management systems to automatically create, assign, and track remediation tickets to the correct teams (DevOps, IT Operations, Security).
5. Continuous Monitoring
The CTEM platform operates in a continuous loop, ensuring that as soon as a fix is deployed, the platform re-scans and re-validates the environment. This ensures that the remediation was successful and did not introduce new exposure, ultimately driving continuous improvement and measurable reduction in the attack surface.
In essence, a CTEM Platform provides the central nervous system for proactive security, ensuring that security resources are always focused on closing the most dangerous, exploitable attack paths that pose the most significant risk to the business.
ThreatNG, as an all-in-one External Attack Surface Management (EASM), Digital Risk Protection (DRP), and Security Ratings solution, is inherently designed to drive a CTEM program by providing a perpetual, unauthenticated, outside-in view that mimics a real adversary.
ThreatNG's Role in Continuous Threat Exposure Management
External Discovery and Continuous Monitoring
ThreatNG supports the CTEM scoping and discovery phases through its External Discovery capability, which performs a purely unauthenticated discovery using no connectors, mirroring an attacker's reconnaissance. Continuous Monitoring ensures the attack surface, digital risk, and security ratings of all organizations are constantly tracked, making the CTEM process cyclical.
Example of ThreatNG Helping: A large corporation acquires a small startup. ThreatNG's External Discovery automatically finds the startup's forgotten
dev.old-api.comsubdomain, which is running an outdated server. This asset is immediately brought under Continuous Monitoring and into the CTEM scope, preventing a potential security blind spot.
External Assessment
ThreatNG’s External Assessment capabilities directly feed the prioritization and validation phases of CTEM by performing deep analysis on the discovered assets from an external perspective.
Cyber Risk Exposure: This score considers factors like certificates, vulnerabilities, and sensitive ports covered by Domain Intelligence. Code Secret Exposure is also factored in by looking for sensitive data in code repositories.
Example: ThreatNG identifies a public-facing server with an exposed Sensitive Port (like RDP or VNC) and an associated finding of Compromised Credentials on the Dark Web. This combination critically elevates the Cyber Risk Exposure score, marking it as a top priority for CTEM teams.
Subdomain Takeover Susceptibility: This score is determined using Domain Intelligence, which analyzes subdomains, DNS records, and SSL certificate statuses.
Example: ThreatNG finds a retired staging subdomain where the DNS record (a finding in Subdomain Intelligence) still points to an external, unclaimed cloud service. ThreatNG flags this high Subdomain Takeover Susceptibility, as an attacker could claim the resource and hijack the subdomain, validating a critical risk.
Breach & Ransomware Susceptibility: This is derived from domain intelligence (exposed sensitive ports, exposed private IPs, and known vulnerabilities), Dark Web Presence (compromised credentials and ransomware gang activity), and Sentiment and Financials (SEC Form 8-Ks).
Example: The platform detects that a tracked ransomware gang is actively targeting a vulnerability exposed on the organization’s network (DarCache Ransomware). Simultaneously, it notes a recent security-related SEC Form 8-K filing. This contextual alignment drastically increases the Breach & Ransomware Susceptibility, providing a clear, threat-driven priority.
Intelligence Repositories (DarCache)
The Intelligence Repositories (DarCache) provide the critical, continuously updated context necessary for the CTEM prioritization phase.
Vulnerabilities (DarCache Vulnerability): This fuses multiple streams of intelligence, including NVD (severity and CVSS score) , EPSS (probabilistic likelihood of exploitation) , and KEV (vulnerabilities actively being exploited in the wild).
Example of ThreatNG Helping: A new CVE is discovered. ThreatNG's Overwatch system instantly performs an impact assessment across all external assets. By correlating the NVD severity with the high EPSS score and KEV status, ThreatNG flags this specific CVE on the exposed asset as the absolute highest priority, transforming a manual, multi-day fire drill into minutes of insight.
Investigation Modules
The Reconnaissance Hub acts as a unified command interface for security teams to actively query their entire external digital footprint to find, validate, and prioritize threats. These modules facilitate the detailed validation and fine-grained prioritization steps of CTEM.
Sensitive Code Exposure: This includes Code Repository Exposure and Mobile Application Discovery.
Example: An analyst uses the Code Repository Exposure module to investigate a discovered public repository and finds an exposed Stripe API Key and a plaintext Database Credential (e.g., a PostgreSQL password file). This finding provides the validated evidence for a critical exposure, requiring immediate key rotation.
Domain Intelligence and Subdomain Intelligence: This allows for a deep technical dive into assets.
Example: The team uses Subdomain Intelligence to investigate a domain and finds an accessible Admin Page and an exposed Development Environment that is running a software with a known vulnerability. This validated access risk is then prioritized for immediate removal or protection.
External Adversary View/MITRE ATT&CK Mapping: This translates raw findings into a strategic narrative of adversary behavior.
Example: ThreatNG discovers Leaked Credentials and an Open Port. It automatically maps these findings to MITRE ATT&CK techniques, such as Initial Access and Persistence. This context allows security leaders to prioritize based on the adversary's likely exploitation path.
Reporting
Reporting is essential for the CTEM mobilization phase, enabling clear communication of validated risk. Reports include Security Ratings (A through F), Prioritized risk reports (High, Medium, Low), and External GRC Assessment Mappings.
Example of ThreatNG Helping: The security team uses the External GRC Assessment Mappings report to demonstrate to the executive board that multiple open ports and misconfigurations, as validated by the External Assessment, directly violate PCI DSS requirements. This clear compliance justification accelerates the mobilization of resources for remediation.
Complementary Solutions and Cooperation
ThreatNG's external, threat-centric view provides high-fidelity input to internal security solutions, bolstering the mobilization and remediation phases of CTEM. The synergies between ThreatNG and complementary solutions focus on translating external exposure into internal action.
ThreatNG and a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Solution:
Cooperation: ThreatNG identifies and validates a high-risk external exposure that provides an attacker with a clear path to Initial Access. This validated external risk data is shared with the SIEM solution.
Example: ThreatNG's Dark Web Presence module and Mobile App Exposure module find an exposed AWS Access Key ID and a trove of Compromised Credentials. This intelligence can be fed to the SIEM, allowing it to use these specific key IDs and credentials as high-priority Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) to monitor internal logs for any attempted use or suspicious activity.
ThreatNG and a Vulnerability and Patch Management (VPM) Tool:
Cooperation: ThreatNG provides a risk-based prioritization list of exposed vulnerabilities using its DarCache Vulnerability intelligence (KEV/EPSS). This highly critical list of proven threats is sent to the VPM tool.
Example: ThreatNG identifies a known vulnerability on a public web server and, using DarCache KEV, confirms it is being actively exploited in the wild. This context enables the VPM tool to override all other internal patching priorities, allowing maintenance teams to focus on immediately patching this specific vulnerability on the relevant external-facing asset, thereby directly addressing the most urgent CTEM priority.
