External GRC Assessment

An External GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) Assessment in the context of cybersecurity is a comprehensive evaluation performed by an independent third party to scrutinize an organization's cybersecurity posture, policies, and practices against established standards, regulations, and best practices. It's an "outside-in" view, differing from internal audits that are conducted by an organization's staff.

Here's a detailed breakdown:

Purpose of an External GRC Assessment

The primary goals of an external GRC assessment are to:

1. Gain an Objective Perspective: Provide an unbiased and objective evaluation of the organization's cybersecurity strengths and weaknesses. Internal teams may have blind spots or biases.

2. Ensure Compliance: Verify adherence to relevant industry regulations (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS), legal mandates, and internal policies.

3. Identify and Mitigate Risks: Pinpoint vulnerabilities, control deficiencies, and emerging threats that could impact the organization's information assets.

4. Enhance Security Posture: Offer recommendations for improving security controls, incident response capabilities, and overall resilience against cyberattacks.

5. Build Stakeholder Confidence: Demonstrate to customers, partners, investors, and regulators that the organization takes cybersecurity seriously and has robust measures in place.

6. Support Business Objectives: Align cybersecurity efforts with business goals, ensuring that security measures facilitate, rather than hinder, operational efficiency and innovation.

Key Components and Phases

An external GRC assessment typically involves several phases and components:

1. Scope Definition:

• Identification of Assets: Determining which systems, data, applications, and processes are within the scope of the assessment.

• Regulatory & Standard Alignment: Identifying the specific regulations (e.g., NIST CSF, ISO 27001, SOC 2, CMMC) or internal policies against which the assessment will be conducted.

• Stakeholder Identification: Defining the internal teams and individuals who will be involved in the project.

2. Information Gathering & Documentation Review:

• Policy and Procedure Review: Examining documented security policies, procedures, standards, and guidelines (e.g., incident response plans, data classification policies, access control policies).

• Architecture Review: Analyzing network diagrams, system configurations, and security architecture designs.

• Previous Audit Reports: Reviewing findings from prior internal or external audits.

• Risk Registers: Understanding existing identified risks and their mitigation strategies.

3. Interviews and Workshops:

• Personnel Interviews: Engaging with key personnel across various departments (IT, security, legal, HR, business units) to understand their roles, responsibilities, and practices related to cybersecurity.

• Process Walkthroughs: Observing how security processes are executed in practice.

4. Technical Assessments (often integrated):

• Vulnerability Assessments: Scanning systems and applications for known weaknesses.

• Penetration Testing: Simulating real-world attacks to identify exploitable vulnerabilities.

• Configuration Reviews: Verifying the security settings of critical systems and devices against established best practices.

• Security Architecture Review: Evaluating the design and effectiveness of security controls at an architectural level.

5. Control Effectiveness Testing:

• Evidence Collection: Gathering evidence that controls are operating as intended (e.g., logs, access reports, change management records).

• Sampling: Selecting a sample of transactions or activities to test the effectiveness of specific controls.

• Gap Analysis: Comparing the current state of security controls against the defined standards and identifying discrepancies.

6. Reporting and Recommendations:

• Findings Report: A detailed report outlining identified vulnerabilities, control deficiencies, compliance gaps, and risks.

• Risk Prioritization: Classifying findings based on their potential impact and likelihood.

• Actionable Recommendations: Providing clear, practical, and prioritized recommendations for remediation, improvement, and risk mitigation. These recommendations typically include specific steps, designated responsible parties, and established timelines.

• Executive Summary: A high-level overview for senior management.

7. Follow-up and Remediation Support (optional, but common):

• Remediation Tracking: Assisting the organization in tracking the progress of remediation efforts.

• Re-assessment: In some cases, a follow-up assessment may be conducted to verify that identified issues have been addressed.

Key Characteristics

• Independence: The assessment is conducted by a third party, ensuring objectivity and a fresh perspective.

• Structured Methodology: Follows a defined process, often based on recognized frameworks (e.g., COBIT, ITIL, ISO 27005).

• Evidence-Based: Findings are supported by collected evidence, interviews, and technical tests.

• Holistic View: Covers not just technical aspects but also processes, people, and governance structures.

• Forward-Looking: Aims to provide actionable insights for continuous improvement rather than just pointing out past failures.

Benefits

• Improved risk management.

• Enhanced compliance posture.

• Strengthened security controls.

• Increased stakeholder trust.

• Reduced likelihood and impact of cyber incidents.

• Better allocation of cybersecurity resources.

In essence, an External GRC Assessment acts as a critical health check for an organization's cybersecurity program, providing a roadmap for continuous improvement and ensuring that the organization is well-prepared to defend against evolving cyber threats and meet its regulatory obligations.

ThreatNG, as an all-in-one external attack surface management, digital risk protection, and security ratings solution, offers comprehensive capabilities that directly support and enhance external GRC assessments in the context of cybersecurity.

Here's how ThreatNG would help, detailing its key features:

ThreatNG's Role in External GRC Assessments

ThreatNG provides a continuous, outside-in evaluation of an organization's GRC posture by identifying exposed assets, critical vulnerabilities, and digital risks from the perspective of an unauthenticated attacker. It maps these findings directly to relevant GRC frameworks, enabling proactive identification and addressing of external security and compliance gaps.

1. External Discovery: ThreatNG's ability to perform purely external unauthenticated discovery using no connectors is crucial for an external GRC assessment. This means it can identify an organization's digital footprint as an attacker would see it, without needing internal access or credentials. This unauthenticated discovery provides an accurate "outside-in" view, which is fundamental for an external assessment.

2. External Assessment: ThreatNG performs a wide range of external assessments that directly feed into GRC evaluations by highlighting potential risks and compliance issues:

• Web Application Hijack Susceptibility: This assessment utilizes external attack surface and digital risk intelligence, including Domain Intelligence, to analyze parts of a web application that are accessible from the outside. It identifies potential entry points for attackers, which is crucial for evaluating an organization's web presence security posture against specific regulatory requirements for web application security.

• Subdomain Takeover Susceptibility: ThreatNG evaluates this by using external attack surface and digital risk intelligence, incorporating Domain Intelligence. It includes a comprehensive analysis of subdomains, DNS records, and SSL certificate statuses. Identifying such susceptibilities is vital for preventing attackers from gaining control over an organization's subdomains, which can lead to reputational damage and data breaches, directly impacting governance and risk management.

• BEC & Phishing Susceptibility: This is derived from Sentiment and Financial Findings, Domain Intelligence (including DNS Intelligence capabilities such as domain name permutations and Web3 Domains), and Email Intelligence for email security presence and format prediction, as well as dark web presence (Compromised Credentials). This assessment helps evaluate an organization's susceptibility to business email compromise and phishing attacks, which are major vectors for data breaches and non-compliance with data protection regulations. For example, if ThreatNG identifies numerous compromised credentials on the dark web, it indicates a high risk of phishing success, requiring immediate action to comply with data breach notification laws.

• Brand Damage Susceptibility: Derived from attack surface intelligence, digital risk intelligence, ESG Violations, Sentiment and Financials (Lawsuits, SEC filings, SEC Form 8-Ks, and Negative News), and Domain Intelligence (Domain Name Permutations and Web3 Domains). This directly relates to governance, as a damaged brand can significantly impact business operations and regulatory standing. For instance, negative news or lawsuits identified by ThreatNG could signal underlying GRC failures.

• Data Leak Susceptibility: This is derived from external attack surface and digital risk intelligence based on Cloud and SaaS Exposure, Dark Web Presence (Compromised Credentials), Domain Intelligence (DNS Intelligence and Email Intelligence), and Sentiment and Financials (Lawsuits and SEC Form 8-Ks). Detecting potential data leaks is crucial for GRC, particularly in light of data privacy regulations such as GDPR or CCPA. If ThreatNG identifies sensitive data exposed on cloud services or compromised credentials on the dark web, it flags a critical data leak susceptibility that needs immediate GRC attention.

• Cyber Risk Exposure: This considers parameters from the Domain Intelligence module, including certificates, subdomain headers, vulnerabilities, and sensitive ports. Additionally, Code Secret Exposure, which identifies code repositories and their exposure levels for sensitive data, is also taken into account. Cloud and SaaS Exposure, which evaluates cloud services and SaaS solutions, is also considered. The score also takes into account an organization's compromised credentials on the dark web, which increases the risk of successful attacks. This assessment provides a comprehensive view of an organization's overall cyber risk, enabling GRC teams to prioritize remediation efforts based on the identified vulnerabilities. For example, discovering open sensitive ports or exposed private IPs through Domain Intelligence highlights critical attack vectors.

• ESG Exposure: ThreatNG rates an organization based on the discovery of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) violations through its external attack surface and digital risk intelligence findings. It analyzes areas such as Competition, Consumer, Employment, Environment, Financial, Government Contracting, Healthcare, and Safety-related offenses. This is a direct GRC assessment, highlighting non-compliance with ESG standards that can lead to regulatory penalties and reputational damage.

• Supply Chain & Third Party Exposure: This is derived from Domain Intelligence (Enumeration of Vendor Technologies from DNS and Subdomains), Technology Stack, and Cloud and SaaS Exposure. In today's interconnected business environment, assessing third-party risk is a critical component of GRC. ThreatNG helps identify potential vulnerabilities arising from an organization's supply chain and third-party vendors. For instance, discovering a vulnerable vendor technology in an organization's supply chain would trigger a third-party risk assessment within the GRC framework.

• Breach & Ransomware Susceptibility: This is calculated based on external attack surface and digital risk intelligence, including domain intelligence (exposed sensitive ports, exposed private IPs, and known vulnerabilities), dark web presence (compromised credentials, ransomware events, and gang activity), and sentiment and financials (SEC Form 8-Ks). This directly assesses an organization's preparedness for and susceptibility to significant cyber incidents, which are key GRC concerns. If ThreatNG identifies ransomware gang activity associated with the organization, it's a severe red flag for GRC.

• Mobile App Exposure: ThreatNG evaluates the exposure of an organization’s mobile apps by discovering them in marketplaces and analyzing their content for access credentials, security credentials, and platform-specific identifiers. This helps identify critical vulnerabilities in mobile applications that could lead to data breaches or unauthorized access, impacting compliance with secure application development guidelines. For example, if ThreatNG detects hardcoded API keys in a public mobile app, it constitutes a significant security and compliance violation.

• Positive Security Indicators: ThreatNG identifies and highlights an organization's security strengths, such as Web Application Firewalls or multi-factor authentication, by validating these measures from the perspective of an external attacker. This provides a balanced view of an organization's security posture and explains the specific security benefits of these positive measures. For GRC, this is valuable as it demonstrates adequate controls are in place, aiding in compliance reporting and showcasing a mature security program.

3. Reporting: ThreatNG offers various reporting capabilities, including Executive, Technical, Prioritized (High, Medium, Low, and Informational), Security Ratings, Inventory, Ransomware Susceptibility, U.S. SEC Filings, and External GRC Assessment Mappings (e.g., PCI DSS). These reports are essential for GRC teams to communicate findings to stakeholders, prioritize remediation efforts, and demonstrate compliance with specific frameworks. The ability to map findings directly to GRC frameworks, such as PCI DSS, significantly streamlines the assessment process.

4. Continuous Monitoring: ThreatNG provides continuous monitoring of an organization's external attack surface, digital risk, and security ratings. For external GRC assessments, constant monitoring is critical because the threat landscape and an organization's attack surface are constantly evolving. This ensures that any new vulnerabilities or compliance gaps are identified promptly, allowing for continuous adherence to GRC requirements rather than relying on point-in-time assessments.

5. Investigation Modules: ThreatNG's investigation modules offer deep insights into various aspects of an organization's external posture, which are invaluable for GRC teams to understand the root cause of risks and address them effectively:

• Domain Intelligence: This module provides a comprehensive overview of an organization's digital presence.

• Domain Overview: Includes Digital Presence Word Cloud, Microsoft Entra Identification and Domain Enumeration, Bug Bounty Programs, and related SwaggerHub instances. For GRC, this helps in understanding the scope of an organization's internet-facing assets and identifying any unauthorized or forgotten domains that could pose a risk.

• DNS Intelligence: Provides Domain Record Analysis (IP Identification, Vendors and Technology Identification), Domain Name Permutations, and Web3 Domains. This is crucial for identifying misconfigured DNS records that could lead to phishing attacks or subdomain takeovers, directly impacting compliance with security best practices.

• Email Intelligence: Offers Security Presence (DMARC, SPF, and DKIM records), Format Predictions, and Harvested Emails. This helps in assessing email security controls, which are vital for preventing phishing and BEC attacks, thereby directly supporting GRC requirements related to email security.

• WHOIS Intelligence: Includes WHOIS Analysis and Other Domains Owned. This helps identify shadow IT or domains owned by the organization that are not adequately secured or managed.

• Subdomain Intelligence: Provides HTTP Responses, Header Analysis, Server Headers, Cloud Hosting, Website Builders, E-commerce Platforms, Content Management Systems, CRM, Email Marketing, Communication and Marketing, Landing Page Builders, Sales Enablement, Online Course Platforms, Help Desk Software, Knowledge Base Software, Customer Feedback Platforms, Code Repositories, Cloud Hosting, API Management, Developer Tools, Documentation Platforms, Product Management, Video Hosting, Blogging Platforms, Podcast Hosting, Digital Publishing, Photo Sharing, Content Experience, Translation Management, Brand Management, Website Monitoring, Status Communication, Survey Platforms, Project Management, Shipment Tracking, Subdomain Takeover Susceptibility, Content Identification (Admin Pages, APIs, Development Environments, VPNs, Empty HTTP/HTTPS Responses, HTTP/HTTPS Errors, Applications, Google Tag Managers, Javascript, Emails, Phone Numbers), Ports (IoT / OT, Industrial Control Systems, Databases, Remote Access Services), Known Vulnerabilities, Web Application Firewall Discovery and Vendor Types. This detailed intelligence is crucial for identifying every exposed entry point and vulnerability, enabling GRC teams to assess the risk thoroughly. For example, discovering exposed IoT/OT ports or databases directly on the internet indicates a severe security misconfiguration and a clear GRC violation.

• IP Intelligence: Covers IPs, Shared IPs, ASNs, Country Locations, and Private IPs. This helps GRC teams understand the geographical distribution of their assets and identify any unintended exposure of private IPs.

• Certificate Intelligence: Provides TLS Certificates (Status, Issuers, Active, Certs without Subdomains, Subdomains without Certificates) and Associated Organizations (Domains, Certificates, and Emails). This is crucial for compliance with encryption standards and ensuring that all publicly accessible services utilize valid and up-to-date certificates.

• Social Media: Displays posts from the organization, breaking out content copy, hashtags, links, and tags. This can help identify brand reputation risks or potential data leakage through social media channels, falling under the 'governance' aspect of GRC.

• Sensitive Code Exposure:

• Code Repository Exposure: Discovers public code repositories and uncovers digital risks including Access Credentials (API Keys, Access Tokens, Generic Credentials), Cloud Credentials, Security Credentials (Cryptographic Keys), Other Secrets, Configuration Files (Application, System, Network), Database Exposures (Database Files, Database Credentials), Application Data Exposures (Remote Access, Encryption Keys, Encrypted Data, Java Keystores, Code Repository Data), Activity Records (Command History, Logs, Network Traffic), Communication Platform Configurations, Development Environment Configurations, Security Testing Tools, Cloud Service Configurations, Remote Access Credentials, System Utilities, Personal Data, and User Activity. This is immensely valuable for GRC as it directly identifies instances of sensitive information exposure, which can lead to major breaches and compliance failures. For example, finding an AWS Access Key ID in a public code repository is a critical GRC finding that requires immediate remediation.

• Mobile Application Discovery: Discovers mobile apps in marketplaces and identifies the presence of Access Credentials, Security Credentials, and Platform-Specific Identifiers within them. This helps ensure that mobile applications adhere to security best practices and do not expose sensitive information.

• Search Engine Exploitation:

• Website Control Files: Discovers robots.txt and security.txt files and their contents. This helps ensure that proper security disclosure policies are in place and that sensitive directories are not inadvertently exposed through search engines.

• Search Engine Attack Surface: Helps investigate an organization’s susceptibility to exposing Errors, General Advisories, IoT Entities, Persistent Exploitation, Potential Sensitive Information, Privileged Folders, Public Passwords, Susceptible Files, Susceptible Servers, User Data, and Web Servers via search engines. This is crucial for identifying data leakage through misconfigured web servers or files indexed by search engines, a common source of compliance violations.

• Cloud and SaaS Exposure: Identifies Sanctioned and Unsanctioned Cloud Services, Cloud Service Impersonations, and Open Exposed Cloud Buckets across AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. It also highlights SaaS implementations such as Business Intelligence and Data Analytics (Looker, Amplitude, Mode), Collaboration and Productivity (Atlassian), Content Management and Collaboration (Box, SharePoint), CRM (Salesforce), Customer Service and Support (Kustomer), Communication and Collaboration (Slack), Data Analytics and Observability (Splunk), Endpoint Management (JAMF), ERP (Workday), Human Resources (BambooHR), Identity and Access Management (Azure Active Directory, Okta), Incident Management (PagerDuty), IT Service Management (ServiceNow), Project Management (Asana), Video Conferencing (Zoom), and Work Operating System (Monday.com). This comprehensive view of cloud and SaaS usage is vital for GRC to ensure that all cloud assets are governed and compliant, preventing shadow IT and data exposure. For example, discovering an unsanctioned cloud service or an open S3 bucket would be a significant GRC concern.

• Online Sharing Exposure: Identifies the presence of an organizational entity on online code-sharing platforms, including Pastebin, GitHub Gist, Scribd, Slideshare, Prezi, and GitHub Code. This is critical for detecting accidental or malicious sharing of sensitive organizational information.

• Sentiment and Financials: Uncovers Organizational Related Lawsuits, Layoff Chatter, SEC Filings of Publicly Traded US Companies (especially Risk and Oversight Disclosures), SEC Form 8-Ks, and ESG Violations. This directly supports the governance aspect of GRC by providing insights into financial and reputational risks.

• Archived Web Pages: Discovers archived online presence including API, BAK, CSS, Demo Pages, Document Files, Emails, Excel Files, HTML Files, Image Files, Javascript Files, JSON Files, JSP Files, Login Pages, PDF Files, PHP Files, Potential Redirects, Python Files, Txt Files, XML Files, Directories, Subdomains, User Names, and Admin Pages. This helps in identifying historical data exposure or forgotten assets that could still pose a risk.

• Dark Web Presence: Identifies organizational mentions of Related or Defined People, Places, or Things, Associated Ransomware Events, and Associated Compromised Credentials. This provides crucial intelligence on real-world threats and compromised data, directly impacting an organization's risk profile and GRC posture.

• Technology Stack: Identifies all technologies used by the organization, including Accounting Tools, Analytics, API Management, Blogging / Microblogging, Booking, CDN, CMS, CRM, Databases, Developer Platforms, Digital Content Publishing, Ecommerce, Email, Helpdesk Software, Incident Management, Core JavaScript, JavaScript Libraries, JavaScript Frameworks, JavaScript Graphics Libraries, Marketing Automation, Media, Operating Systems, POS / Retail Management, Privacy, Project Management, Security, Shipping, Utilities, Web Servers, and Website Development. Understanding the technology stack helps GRC teams assess the associated risks and ensure that appropriate security controls are in place for each technology.

6. Intelligence Repositories (DarCache): ThreatNG's continuously updated intelligence repositories, branded as DarCache, provide critical context for GRC assessments:

• Dark Web (DarCache Dark Web), Compromised Credentials (DarCache Rupture), Ransomware Groups and Activities (DarCache Ransomware): Tracking over 70 ransomware gangs. This intelligence directly informs GRC of real-world threats and potential breaches, enabling proactive measures and compliance with breach reporting requirements.

• Vulnerabilities (DarCache Vulnerability): Offers a comprehensive and proactive approach to managing external risks and vulnerabilities by assessing their real-world exploitability, likelihood of exploitation, and potential impact.

• NVD (DarCache NVD): Information includes Attack Complexity, Attack Interaction, Attack Vector, Impact scores (Availability, Confidentiality, Integrity), CVSS Score, and Severity. This provides a deep understanding of the technical characteristics and potential impact of each vulnerability, crucial for GRC risk assessment.

• EPSS (DarCache EPSS): Provides a probabilistic estimate of the likelihood of a vulnerability being exploited shortly. This forward-looking approach enables GRC teams to prioritize vulnerabilities that are not only severe but also likely to be weaponized.

• KEV (DarCache KEV): Identifies vulnerabilities actively being exploited in the wild, providing critical context for prioritizing remediation efforts. This is essential for GRC to focus on the most immediate and proven threats.

• Verified Proof-of-Concept (PoC) Exploits (DarCache eXploit): Direct links to PoC exploits on platforms like GitHub, referenced by CVE, facilitate a deeper understanding of how a vulnerability can be exploited. This information is invaluable for security teams to reproduce vulnerabilities, assess real-world impact, and develop effective mitigation strategies. This directly supports the risk mitigation aspect of GRC.

• ESG Violations (DarCache ESG): Includes Competition, Consumer, Employment, Environment, Financial, Government Contracting, Healthcare, and Safety-related offenses. This directly supports the compliance and governance aspects of GRC by providing historical data on ESG non-compliance.

• SEC Form 8-Ks (DarCache 8-K): Provides relevant SEC filings, particularly for publicly traded US companies, which often contain risk and oversight disclosures. This directly supports the governance and compliance aspects of GRC by providing insights into an organization's publicly disclosed risks.

Complementary Solutions

While ThreatNG is a comprehensive solution, it can also work synergistically with other cybersecurity tools to further enhance an organization's GRC posture:

• Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Systems: ThreatNG's external threat intelligence and identified vulnerabilities can be fed into a SIEM. For example, if ThreatNG identifies a critical exposed port and then a SIEM detects unusual traffic to that port, it can trigger a high-priority alert. This integration enables a more comprehensive view of both external and internal risks, thereby enhancing incident response and compliance monitoring.

• Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) Platforms: ThreatNG's External GRC Assessment mappings and detailed reports (e.g., PCI DSS mapping) can be directly imported into a dedicated GRC platform. This streamlines the documentation of findings, tracking of remediation efforts, and overall management of compliance initiatives. For instance, the identified compliance gaps in ThreatNG's reports would populate the risk register within a GRC platform, allowing for structured follow-up.

• Vulnerability Management (VM) Solutions: While ThreatNG identifies external vulnerabilities, a dedicated VM solution might handle the internal scanning and remediation workflow. ThreatNG's NVD, EPSS, and KEV intelligence can enrich the VM solution's data, helping prioritize internal patching efforts based on real-world exploitability. If ThreatNG identifies a public-facing web server with a known vulnerability and high EPSS score, the VM solution can then prioritize scanning and patching that specific server internally.

• Identity and Access Management (IAM) Systems: The compromised credentials identified by ThreatNG's Dark Web Presence module can be used to trigger actions within an IAM system, such as forcing password resets for affected users. This proactive measure mitigates the risk of account takeover and strengthens the overall access control posture, which is a key GRC concern.

• Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) Platforms: ThreatNG's actionable recommendations and identified risks can be integrated into a SOAR platform to automate incident response workflows. For example, if ThreatNG detects a sensitive file exposed on a public code repository, the SOAR platform could automatically trigger a task for the development team to remove the file and update access controls, while also alerting the legal and GRC teams.

By combining ThreatNG's unique external perspective with the internal visibility and process automation of complementary solutions, organizations can achieve a more robust and proactive cybersecurity posture, significantly strengthening their overall GRC standing.