The Discovery Gap
The discovery gap is a critical concept in modern information security that describes the discrepancy between the assets an organization believes it owns and the assets it actually exposes to the internet. As digital infrastructure becomes more complex, this visibility gap represents one of the most significant risks to enterprise security.
What is the Discovery Gap in Cybersecurity?
The discovery gap is the difference between an organization’s internal asset inventory and its actual external digital footprint. In a perfect environment, these two sets of data would be identical. However, in most modern enterprises, the external attack surface is significantly larger than what is documented in internal registries or Configuration Management Databases.
This gap consists of "unknown unknowns"—digital assets that are connected to the internet, owned by the company, but invisible to the security team. Because these assets are not tracked, they are not patched, monitored, or secured, making them primary targets for cyberattacks.
Primary Causes of the Discovery Gap
Several factors contribute to the expansion of an organization’s unmanaged attack surface. Understanding these drivers is essential for reducing risk.
Shadow IT: This occurs when individual departments or employees deploy software, cloud instances, or web applications without the knowledge or approval of the central IT department.
Cloud Sprawl: The ease of spinning up virtual machines, S3 buckets, and serverless functions often leads to abandoned or forgotten cloud resources that remain active and vulnerable.
Mergers and Acquisitions: When one company acquires another, they often inherit a vast array of legacy systems, domains, and IP addresses that are not immediately integrated into the primary security inventory.
Ephemeral Infrastructure: Modern DevOps practices involve containers and microservices that may only exist for minutes or hours. Traditional periodic scanning often misses these assets entirely.
Third-Party Ecosystems: Supply chain connections, partner portals, and outsourced marketing sites often reside on infrastructure that is technically associated with the brand but managed by external entities.
The Risks Associated with Unmanaged Assets
A wide discovery gap creates significant vulnerabilities that threat actors actively exploit.
Unpatched Vulnerabilities: If a security team does not know a server exists, they cannot apply critical security updates, leaving it open to known exploits.
Misconfigured Cloud Storage: Many data breaches result from sensitive data being stored in "leaky" cloud buckets created outside standard security protocols.
Subdomain Takeovers: Abandoned subdomains that still point to decommissioned third-party services can be hijacked by attackers to host malicious content or launch phishing campaigns.
Compliance Violations: The discovery gap often leads to data residency issues, where sensitive information is stored on unauthorized assets, violating regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI-DSS.
How to Close the Cybersecurity Discovery Gap
Bridging the gap requires a shift from static internal inventories to continuous external discovery.
Continuous Monitoring: Replace quarterly or annual audits with automated, 24/7 discovery tools that scan the entire internet for assets related to your brand.
External Attack Surface Management (EASM): Deploy EASM solutions that use "seed" data (like a primary domain) to discover related IP addresses, subdomains, and certificates through recursive searching.
Asset Attribution: Use advanced logic to determine if a newly discovered asset truly belongs to the organization based on WHOIS data, SSL certificates, and DNS records.
Integrated Inventory: Ensure that any newly discovered external assets are automatically fed back into the internal security operations center (SOC) for immediate assessment and protection.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Discovery Gap
What is the difference between the discovery gap and a security gap?
A security gap refers to a known weakness in existing defenses, such as a missing firewall rule. The discovery gap refers to a lack of visibility, in which the security team is unaware that an asset exists.
Why do traditional vulnerability scanners fail to close the discovery gap?
Traditional scanners usually require a list of IP addresses or hostnames to scan. If an asset is unknown, it is never entered into the scanner, meaning the scanner cannot identify its vulnerabilities.
How does the discovery gap impact incident response?
During a cyberattack, a large discovery gap hinders incident response, as security teams waste valuable time identifying the owner and purpose of the compromised asset.
Can Shadow IT be completely eliminated to close the gap?
In modern decentralized work environments, eliminating Shadow IT is nearly impossible. Instead of trying to stop it, organizations should focus on "finding" it through continuous external discovery to bring those assets under the security umbrella.
Overcoming the Discovery Gap in Cybersecurity with ThreatNG
The discovery gap is the significant visibility void between an organization's known internal asset inventory and its actual, ever-expanding external digital footprint. As organizations adopt cloud services, remote work, and decentralized digital operations, this gap often harbors "unknown unknowns"—unmanaged assets that serve as prime targets for cyber adversaries. ThreatNG addresses this challenge by providing comprehensive visibility and context across the entire external attack surface.
Closing the Gap with External Discovery
ThreatNG bridges the discovery gap by performing purely external, unauthenticated discovery. Unlike traditional tools that require internal agents or connectors, this solution operates from the perspective of an outside attacker.
This unauthenticated approach ensures that no digital asset is overlooked simply because it lacks an internal tracker or a connection to a central management database. By scanning the global internet for brand-related markers, ThreatNG uncovers Shadow IT, forgotten cloud instances, and legacy subdomains that internal security teams may not know exist.
Detailed External Assessments: Technical Examples
Beyond merely finding assets, ThreatNG conducts granular assessments to determine their security posture and susceptibility to specific attack vectors.
Subdomain Takeover Susceptibility: This assessment identifies abandoned subdomains that still point to third-party services. ThreatNG identifies all associated subdomains through external discovery and uses DNS enumeration to find CNAME records pointing to external providers. It then cross-references these against a comprehensive vendor list, including cloud storage like AWS/S3, PaaS like Heroku, and CMS platforms like WordPress. Finally, a validation check determines if the CNAME points to an inactive or unclaimed resource, confirming a "dangling DNS" state.
Non-Human Identity (NHI) Exposure: ThreatNG quantifies vulnerabilities stemming from high-privilege machine identities, such as leaked API keys and service accounts, which are frequently invisible to internal tools. It continuously assesses 11 specific exposure vectors, including sensitive code exposure and misconfigured cloud assets, to uncover these hidden risks.
Web Application Hijack Susceptibility: This assesses whether critical security headers are present on subdomains. ThreatNG analyzes subdomains for missing Content-Security-Policy (CSP), HTTP Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS), and X-Frame-Options, assigning a security rating from A to F based on these findings.
Data Leak Susceptibility: This evaluation identifies external digital risks, including exposed cloud buckets, compromised credentials, and externally identifiable SaaS applications.
Actionable Reporting and Continuous Monitoring
To ensure the discovery gap remains closed, ThreatNG provides a continuous feedback loop through monitoring and reporting.
Continuous Monitoring: The platform maintains 24/7 surveillance of the external attack surface, digital risk profile, and security ratings of the entire organization.
Prioritized Reporting: ThreatNG generates technical and executive reports categorized by risk level (High, Medium, Low, and Informational). These reports include security ratings, ransomware susceptibility, and mappings to GRC frameworks like GDPR and HIPAA.
Embedded Knowledge Base: Reports are enriched with practical recommendations, reasoning for the identified risks, and reference links to help security teams prioritize remediation effectively.
Deep Dive: Specialized Investigation Modules
ThreatNG employs dedicated investigation modules to provide deep contextual analysis of discovered assets.
Domain Intelligence: This module provides a "Digital Presence Word Cloud" and enumerates SwaggerHub instances. For example, by identifying SwaggerHub instances, security teams can uncover API documentation and specifications, allowing them to test the functionality and structure of exposed APIs before an attacker does.
DNS Intelligence: Beyond standard records, this module proactively checks for Web3 domain permutations, such as those ending in .eth or .crypto. This allows organizations to identify brand impersonation risks and secure their presence in decentralized environments.
Social Media Discovery: This module focuses on the "Conversational Attack Surface". For example, the Reddit Discovery feature transforms unmonitored public chatter into an early warning system for narrative risks. Similarly, the LinkedIn Discovery module identifies specific employees who may be highly susceptible to social engineering attacks based on their public profile data.
DarCache: Comprehensive Intelligence Repositories
The solution utilizes "DarCache," a suite of continuously updated repositories that provide real-world context to findings.
Ransomware Groups (DarCache Ransomware): Tracks over 100 active ransomware gangs, monitoring their unique encryption methods, geopolitical motivations, and target industries.
Vulnerabilities (DarCache Vulnerability): Integrates data from the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) with active exploit data (KEV) and the likelihood of future exploitation (EPSS).
Compromised Credentials (DarCache Rupture): Aggregates credentials leaked across the dark web and other breaches to identify accounts at immediate risk of takeover.
Sensitive Code (DarCache Mobile/Code): Identifies exposed API keys, cloud credentials, and private keys within public code repositories and mobile application marketplaces.
Synergizing with Complementary Solutions
ThreatNG is designed to cooperate with a wider security ecosystem to streamline remediation and enhance defense-in-depth.
Cooperation with SIEM and XDR: By discovering external assets and vulnerabilities, ThreatNG provides the necessary "outside-in" data that feeds into Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Extended Detection and Response (XDR) platforms, such as Splunk, Microsoft Defender, or Cortex XDR. This allows these systems to monitor previously unknown assets for suspicious activity.
Cooperation with Vulnerability Management: Findings from ThreatNG's unauthenticated scans can be used to populate internal vulnerability management tools like Qualys, Tenable, or Rapid7. This ensures that the assets discovered in the discovery gap are subjected to the same rigorous internal patching and assessment cycles as managed assets.
Cooperation with Identity and Access Management (IAM): The Non-Human Identity findings can be shared with IAM platforms like Okta or CyberArk to revoke compromised API keys or rotate leaked service account credentials discovered on the public internet.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between the discovery gap and a traditional security gap?
A security gap is a known weakness in a defended asset, such as an unpatched server. The discovery gap is a lack of awareness that the asset exists at all, meaning it is completely outside the security team's control.
Why does ThreatNG use an unauthenticated approach?
An unauthenticated approach mimics the reconnaissance phase of a real-world cyberattack. It allows the platform to discover everything an attacker can find without relying on internal permissions or accurate company records.
How does ThreatNG help with Shadow IT?
ThreatNG identifies subdomains, cloud buckets, and SaaS applications that were deployed by employees or departments without IT oversight. It brings these assets into view so they can be secured or decommissioned.
What is "Legal-Grade Attribution" in cybersecurity?
ThreatNG uses a proprietary Context Engine to correlate technical findings (such as an exposed IP) with relevant legal, financial, and operational context. This provides the absolute certainty required to justify security investments and prove asset ownership.
