External Telemetry
External telemetry refers to the continuous collection, fusion, and analysis of security-related data from sources outside an organization’s internal network. While traditional "inside-out" monitoring focuses on internal logs and agents, external telemetry provides a purely "outside-in" perspective, mirroring how an organization’s digital footprint appears to a potential adversary.
By capturing real-time signals from the open, deep, and dark web, external telemetry identifies vulnerabilities and exposures that internal tools often cannot see.
How External Telemetry Functions
The process of gathering external telemetry involves several automated stages that transform raw public data into actionable security intelligence.
Discovery and Asset Mapping: The system identifies all internet-facing assets associated with an organization, including subdomains, IP addresses, and cloud infrastructure. This is critical for uncovering "Shadow IT"—assets created without the central IT department's knowledge.
Vulnerability and Configuration Analysis: Automated probes evaluate the security hygiene of discovered assets. This includes checking for missing security headers (like HSTS or CSP), unpatched software, and misconfigured servers.
Credential and Identity Monitoring: Telemetry engines scan dark web forums, public code repositories, and breach dumps for leaked employee credentials or high-privilege machine identities (Non-Human Identities) such as API keys.
Adversarial Narrative Tracking: Beyond technical flaws, external telemetry monitors global threat chatter, news feeds, and social platforms to detect emerging brand impersonation campaigns or adversarial narratives targeting the organization.
Third-Party and Supply Chain Intelligence: Organizations use this data to assess the security posture of their vendors and partners without requiring direct access to their private networks.
Strategic Benefits of the Outside-In View
Implementing a robust external telemetry program provides high-fidelity visibility into the "Attacker’s View" of the enterprise.
Zero-Trust Validation: It provides an objective, unauthenticated check of whether internal security controls—such as firewalls and authentication gateways—are functioning as intended from the perspective of an outsider.
Reduced Alert Fatigue: By correlating external technical findings with business context, security teams can distinguish between minor glitches and high-fidelity threats actively targeted by adversaries.
Proactive Risk Management: It allows organizations to move defense timelines upstream, identifying and remediating exposures (like a "dangling" DNS record prone to subdomain takeover) before they can be weaponized.
Legal-Grade Attribution: High-quality external telemetry fuses technical data with legal, financial, and operational context, providing the certainty needed to justify security investments to the boardroom.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does external telemetry require internal access or agents?
No. One of its primary advantages is that it is purely unauthenticated and "agentless." It relies on public protocols and external scanning to gather data, making it non-intrusive and fast to deploy.
What is the difference between external and internal telemetry?
Internal telemetry monitors activity within the system (e.g., endpoint process logs and internal database traffic). External telemetry monitors how the system is exposed to the world (e.g., public vulnerabilities, brand risk, and dark web mentions).
Can external telemetry help prevent ransomware?
Yes. By monitoring ransomware gang portals and identifying the specific external entry points (such as exposed ports or leaked credentials) these groups typically exploit, organizations can close gaps before an attack begins.
Why is external telemetry important for GRC?
Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) programs use external telemetry to continuously evaluate an organization's posture against frameworks such as NIST CSF and GDPR. It provides automated evidence of compliance from an objective, outside perspective.
Establishing a comprehensive External Telemetry program is critical for modern enterprise risk management, as it provides a real-time, "attacker's eye" view of an organization's digital perimeter. ThreatNG is an all-in-one external attack surface management and digital risk protection solution designed to facilitate this by analyzing a digital footprint from the "outside-in".
Leveraging ThreatNG for External Discovery
ThreatNG’s foundation for external telemetry begins with purely external unauthenticated discovery. This methodology requires no internal connectors or agents, ensuring the telemetry gathered reflects exactly what is visible to a motivated adversary on the open internet.
Autonomous Asset Mapping: Starting from a simple "seed," such as a company domain or IP range, ThreatNG automatically identifies all associated subdomains, cloud instances, and digital assets.
Shadow IT Detection: Because discovery is unauthenticated, it excels at finding "Shadow IT"—assets created by departments without the knowledge or control of central IT.
Zero-Configuration Discovery: Organizations can begin telemetry collection immediately, mirroring an attacker's initial reconnaissance steps without complex internal integrations.
Deep External Assessment and Security Ratings
ThreatNG transforms raw external signals into high-fidelity assessment telemetry, assigning security ratings from A (Good) to F (Bad) across multiple digital vectors.
Examples of Detailed Assessment Telemetry
Subdomain Takeover Susceptibility: ThreatNG uses DNS enumeration to identify CNAME records pointing to third-party services like AWS, GitHub, or Shopify. It then performs a validation check to confirm a "dangling DNS" state—a major gap in external telemetry that attackers prioritize for hijacking legitimate subdomains.
Web Application Hijack Susceptibility: This analyzes subdomains for the presence of critical security headers, such as Content-Security-Policy (CSP), HSTS, and X-Frame-Options. A lack of these headers is a key telemetry signal indicating high susceptibility to script injection or session hijacking.
Non-Human Identity (NHI) Exposure: This metric quantifies risk from high-privilege machine identities, such as leaked API keys or system credentials found in public code repositories.
Positive Security Indicators: ThreatNG also reports on beneficial controls such as Web Application Firewalls (WAFs) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), providing objective evidence of their effectiveness from an external perspective.
Deep-Dive Investigation Modules
Specialized investigation modules allow security teams to drill into specific telemetry signals for granular risk analysis and remediation prioritization.
Domain Intelligence: This module provides a holistic view of an organization's digital presence, including Web3 Domain Discovery (e.g., .eth, .crypto) to detect potential brand impersonation or phishing schemes before they mature into attacks.
Domain Name Permutations: This module detects manipulations such as homoglyphs, bitsquatting, and TLD-swaps. For example, it might identify a registered domain that uses a lookalike character to trick users into trusting a fake login portal.
Technology Stack Identification: ThreatNG identifies nearly 4,000 different technologies—from cloud infrastructure like AWS to AI platforms like OpenAI—helping organizations understand the technical foundation of their external attack surface.
Social Media and News Discovery: Scans platforms like Reddit and LinkedIn to identify organizational mentions and employee identity mapping that could be exploited for targeted social engineering.
Continuous Monitoring and Intelligence Repositories
Effective external telemetry requires constant validation. ThreatNG provides automated, continuous monitoring of an organization’s external attack surface and security ratings.
Intelligence Repositories (DarCache)
The platform maintains continuously updated repositories, branded as DarCache, which provide the deep context necessary for making informed risk decisions.
DarCache Ransomware: Tracks over 100 ransomware gangs, providing early warning signals based on their current activities and methods.
DarCache Vulnerability: Integrates data from the NVD, KEV, and EPSS to prioritize remediation based on real-world exploitability and the likelihood of future weaponization.
DarCache Dark Web: Provides a sanitized, navigable copy of dark web content, allowing teams to safely investigate where their brand or data might be mentioned by threat actors.
Unified Reporting and GRC Mappings
ThreatNG transforms technical telemetry into strategic narratives for different stakeholders.
Executive and Technical Reports: High-level security ratings (A-F) provide clarity for leadership, while detailed technical findings are mapped to MITRE ATT&CK techniques for operational teams.
External GRC Assessment: Findings are automatically mapped to major compliance frameworks, including PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, NIST CSF, and ISO 27001, identifying governance gaps from an attacker’s perspective.
Embedded Knowledgebase: Reports include the rationale for each identified risk and practical mitigation recommendations, bridging the gap between discovery and action.
Cooperation with Complementary Solutions
ThreatNG serves as a foundational "outside-in" intelligence layer, significantly enhancing the effectiveness of other security tools.
Collaboration with Internal Vulnerability Scanners: ThreatNG provides complementary solutions like internal vulnerability scanners with a prioritized list of externally facing assets and "Pivot Points" discovered via DarChain. This allows internal teams to focus their scanners on the specific systems most likely to be targeted for initial access.
Integration with SIEM and XDR Platforms: By feeding its Legal-Grade Attribution and high-fidelity technical findings into a SIEM or XDR, ThreatNG helps eliminate "alert fatigue". This cooperation ensures security teams can distinguish between a routine technical glitch and a targeted external threat, resolving the "Contextual Certainty Deficit".
Tailored Security Awareness Training: Findings from ThreatNG’s Reddit and LinkedIn discovery modules can be used to customize training for employees. For example, if employee data is being targeted on social media, the organization can create highly relevant training exercises to mitigate the risk of social engineering.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does ThreatNG support External Telemetry?
ThreatNG continuously gathers security signals from the perspective of an external attacker, identifying exposed assets, vulnerabilities, and digital risks from the open internet, deep web, and dark web.
What is "Legal-Grade Attribution"?
Legal-Grade Attribution is the process of using ThreatNG’s Context Engine™ to correlate technical security findings with decisive business, financial, and legal context. This transforms ambiguous data into irrefutable evidence for CISOs to justify security investments.
Can ThreatNG detect exposed secrets in code?
Yes. ThreatNG’s discovery engine scans public code repositories for sensitive information, such as API keys, private SSH keys, and cloud credentials, and provides critical telemetry to identify data-leak risks.
