NHI Email Exposure
In the context of cybersecurity, NHI Email Exposure refers to the discoverability and potential vulnerability of email addresses associated with non-human identities (NHIs) on an organization's external attack surface. These are email addresses not tied to individual human users, but rather to automated systems, applications, services, or functions.
This exposure arises when these NHI-related email addresses are publicly accessible or inadvertently leaked through various external channels. Examples include:
Publicly Accessible Records: Email addresses found in public DNS records (like MX, SPF, or DMARC records) that might be associated with mail gateways or services used by NHIs.
Code Repositories: Email addresses embedded in public or improperly secured code repositories (e.g., as part of configuration files, commit histories, or documentation). These could be used for automated notifications, error logging, or service communication.
Forums and Paste Sites: NHI-related email addresses, often accompanied by credentials, are being posted on online forums, paste sites (like Pastebin), or other data-sharing platforms due to leaks or misconfigurations.
Mobile Application Contents: Email addresses hard-coded or exposed within the binaries or data of publicly available mobile applications, potentially used by the app for backend communication or service authentication.
Misconfigured Services: Email addresses linked to automated alerts or administrative functions of externally facing services that are misconfigured to be publicly visible.
The risk associated with NHI Email Exposure is significant because these email addresses can serve as a pivot point for attackers. By identifying these email addresses and their related roles (e.g., admin@, devops@, system@), attackers can:
Targeted Phishing/Spear-Phishing: Create compelling phishing campaigns aimed at the systems or roles rather than specific individuals, attempting to gain access to automated accounts or the systems they control.
Information Gathering: Collect intelligence about an organization's internal structure, technology stack, and automation practices.
Credential Stuffing/Brute Force: If email addresses are linked to compromised credentials found elsewhere (e.g., on the dark web), they can be used in automated login attempts.
Supply Chain Attacks: Identify exposed NHI email addresses of third-party vendors or partners, which could be used to target the supply chain.
Therefore, monitoring and mitigating NHI Email Exposure is a crucial aspect of external attack surface management, helping organizations reduce their overall digital risk by securing their non-human digital footprint.
ThreatNG, an all-in-one external attack surface management, digital risk protection, and security ratings solution, would significantly help with
NHI Email Exposure focuses on the external discoverability and potential vulnerabilities of email addresses associated with non-human identities. It achieves this by providing a comprehensive, outside-in view of an organization's digital footprint where these specific NHIs might be exposed.
ThreatNG's Role in Managing NHI Email Exposure:
1. External Discovery: ThreatNG performs purely external, unauthenticated discovery without needing any connectors. This is crucial for identifying NHI Email Exposure, as these emails are often found in public or externally accessible locations. ThreatNG can discover:
Domain Intelligence (DNS Intelligence): ThreatNG's DNS Intelligence capabilities include Domain Record Analysis and Email Intelligence, which provides email security presence and format prediction. This means it can identify email addresses present in publicly available DNS records (like MX records) or through analysis of domain configurations.
Code Repositories: ThreatNG identifies public code repositories and examines their contents for sensitive data, including access credentials, security credentials, and configuration files that may contain email addresses used by NHIs for notifications, logging, or service communication.
Mobile Application Contents: ThreatNG discovers mobile apps in marketplaces and analyzes their contents for access credentials (like APIs, various tokens, and even generic user/account information) and security credentials (such as PGP private keys, RSA private keys, and SSH private keys). These often include email addresses associated with NHIs used by the apps.
Search Engine Exploitation: ThreatNG can discover emails found within robots.txt and security.txt files, which might be tied to administrative or system-level NHIs.
Archived Web Pages: ThreatNG can discover emails present within archived web pages of an organization’s online presence.
Example of External Discovery Helping with NHI Email Exposure: ThreatNG performs an external scan and discovers the email address system-alerts@example.com within a public security.txt file of your organization. An NHI uses this email address to send automated security notifications. ThreatNG's discovery highlights this specific NHI email exposure.
2. External Assessment: ThreatNG's various assessments directly help in understanding the risk of NHI Email Exposure:
BEC & Phishing Susceptibility: This score is derived from Domain Intelligence (including DNS Intelligence capabilities and Email Intelligence that provides email security presence and format prediction) and Dark Web Presence (Compromised Credentials). An exposed NHI email address could be a prime target for Business Email Compromise (BEC) or phishing attacks aimed at compromising the non-human system it represents.
Example: ThreatNG identifies devops-pipeline@example.com (an NHI email) with a weak email security presence (e.g., missing DMARC or SPF records). This contributes to a higher "BEC & Phishing Susceptibility" score, as this NHI email could be easily spoofed in a phishing campaign targeting internal systems.
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), and Domain Intelligence (including Email Intelligence). If an NHI email address is associated with compromised credentials, it directly impacts this susceptibility.
Example: ThreatNG discovers backup-service@example.com (an NHI email) listed alongside compromised credentials on the dark web. This directly indicates a high "Data Leak Susceptibility" due to the potential compromise of the backup service's associated NHI.
Sensitive Code Exposure: This capability specifically discovers public code repositories and investigates their contents for the presence of sensitive data, including various access credentials, security credentials, and configuration files. If an NHI email is hard-coded within such a repository, it contributes to this exposure.
Example: ThreatNG's analysis of a public code repository reveals api-gateway-monitor@example.comembedded in a configuration file. This directly flags "Sensitive Code Exposure" for this NHI email, as it could indicate internal system architecture.
Mobile App Exposure: This evaluates an organization’s mobile apps for the presence of various access credentials and security credentials. These often include email addresses for API keys, service accounts, or notification systems that are NHIs.
Example: ThreatNG's Mobile App Exposure assessment finds analytics-svc@example.com (an NHI email) hard-coded within a mobile application, potentially indicating a direct point of contact for an automated analytics service.
3. Reporting: ThreatNG offers various reports, including executive, technical, and prioritized reports (High, Medium, Low, and Informational). These reports would detail the specific NHI email exposures identified, their associated risks, and the impact on the overall security posture. For instance, a report could highlight a list of exposed admin@ or devops@ email addresses linked to NHIs.
Example of Reporting Helping with NHI Email Exposure: A Technical Report from ThreatNG lists all identified "NHI Email Roles" that have external exposure, such as noreply-system@example.com, found in an exposed log file, categorized as an "Informational" risk due to its general nature but still noted for visibility. Higher-risk NHI emails, such as those from admin-api@example.com, found in a public code repository, would be marked as "High" priority.
4. Continuous Monitoring: ThreatNG provides continuous monitoring of the external attack surface and digital risk. For NHI Email Exposure, this means:
Detection of New Exposures: As new configurations are deployed or code is updated, ThreatNG would continuously scan for newly exposed NHI email addresses.
Tracking Changes in Risk Posture: If an NHI email address's associated credentials appear on the dark web, ThreatNG's continuous monitoring would detect this and update the risk assessment.
Alerting on Compromised Credentials: The continuous monitoring of dark web presence (Compromised Credentials) would immediately alert if an NHI email address is linked to newly compromised data.
Example of Continuous Monitoring Helping with NHI Email Exposure: An organization's automated script's email, automation-tool@example.com, is inadvertently included in a public Pastebin post. ThreatNG's continuous monitoring detects this new "Online Sharing Exposure" and immediately flags automation-tool@example.com as exposed, allowing the security team to take prompt action.
5. Investigation Modules: ThreatNG's investigation modules provide deep dives into potential NHI Email Exposure:
Domain Intelligence: Specifically, its DNS Intelligence capabilities provide Domain Record Analysis and Email Intelligence, which includes email security presence (DMARC, SPF, DKIM records) and format predictions, as well as harvested emails. This helps directly identify NHI emails and their configuration security.
Example: An investigation using "Email Intelligence" within Domain Intelligence reveals that the NHI email webhook-processor@example.com lacks proper DMARC and SPF records. This indicates a susceptibility to email spoofing, making the associated NHI vulnerable to impersonation.
Sensitive Code Exposure: This module directly discovers public code repositories and investigates their contents for various sensitive data types, including access credentials, security credentials, and configuration files. An NHI email address found within these files would be identified here.
Example: An investigation using "Sensitive Code Exposure" uncovers jenkins-build@example.com (an NHI email) within a publicly accessible Jenkins credentials file in a code repository. This critical finding indicates direct exposure of a key DevOps NHI.
Mobile Application Discovery: This module identifies explicitly email addresses present within discovered mobile apps as part of access or security credentials.
Example: Through "Mobile Application Discovery," ThreatNG finds payment-gateway@example.comembedded as an access credential within a mobile app's binary, highlighting a direct exposure of a sensitive payment-processing NHI email.
Dark Web Presence: This module tracks organizational mentions and associated compromised credentials. If an NHI email address appears in a compromised credential list on the dark web, this module will identify it.
Example: ThreatNG's "Dark Web Presence" investigation reveals that db-sync@example.com (an NHI email for database synchronization) is part of a newly discovered list of compromised credentials being traded online.
6. Intelligence Repositories (DarCache): ThreatNG's DarCache provides continuously updated intelligence crucial for understanding NHI Email Exposure risks:
Compromised Credentials (DarCache Rupture): This repository contains explicit information on compromised credentials. If an NHI email address is linked to any compromised credentials, it will be found here, providing immediate actionable intelligence.
Example: DarCache Rupture alerts that monitoring-alert@example.com (an NHI email) has been found in a recent data breach dump, allowing the security team to invalidate any associated tokens or API keys immediately.
Mobile Apps (DarCache Mobile): This indicates if access and security credentials, which could include NHI emails, are present within discovered mobile apps.
Example of Intelligence Repositories Helping with NHI Email Exposure: DarCache Rupture identifies a batch of compromised email addresses, including service-api@example.com, an NHI email. This immediate intelligence allows the organization to cross-reference this finding with their internal systems and rotate any associated API keys or tokens.
Collaborative Advantages with Complementary Solutions:
Other security solutions can powerfully complement ThreatNG's external focus on NHI Email Exposure:
Complementary Solutions: Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Privileged Access Management (PAM) Systems:
Synergy: ThreatNG's identification of exposed NHI email roles provides crucial external visibility. This information can be fed into internal IAM systems to ensure that discovered NHI emails are appropriately registered, governed, and subject to least privilege policies. PAM systems can then be used to manage the credentials associated with these NHIs, enforcing rotation and just-in-time access if the exposed email points to a highly privileged account.
Example: ThreatNG identifies privileged-admin@example.com (an NHI email) in a public forum. This triggers an alert to the internal security team. The PAM solution is then used to force an immediate rotation of the password for any account associated with this email and to review its permissions to ensure it adheres to the principle of least privilege.
Complementary Solutions: Email Security Gateways (ESG) and DMARC/SPF/DKIM Management Tools:
Synergy: ThreatNG's "Email Intelligence" within Domain Intelligence assesses the email security presence (DMARC, SPF, DKIM records) of discovered domains and emails. Suppose it identifies an NHI email address with poor email security configurations. In that case, this information can be used by ESG and DMARC/SPF/DKIM management tools to strengthen inbound and outbound email authentication and anti-spoofing measures.
Example: ThreatNG's assessment shows that notification-bot@example.com (an NHI email) has weak SPF records. This finding is used by the organization's DMARC management tool to update the SPF record, preventing attackers from spoofing emails from this NHI for phishing purposes.
Complementary Solutions: Secrets Management Solutions:
Synergy: ThreatNG's discovery of NHI emails often comes hand-in-hand with the discovery of exposed credentials in code repositories or mobile apps. This provides concrete evidence that an organization needs to centralize and secure its secrets. Secrets management solutions can then be used to store and manage the actual credentials associated with the NHIs identified via their exposed emails, ensuring they are not hard-coded.
Example: ThreatNG identifies dev-api-key@example.com (an NHI email) associated with an API key exposed in a public GitHub Gist. This prompts the development team to migrate this and all similar NHI credentials into a secrets management vault, with the API key being programmatically retrieved rather than hard-coded.
Complementary Solutions: Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) Platforms:
Synergy: ThreatNG's findings on NHI Email Exposure, especially alerts from continuous monitoring regarding new exposures or compromised credentials, can be ingested by SIEM systems for centralized logging and correlation with other security events. SOAR platforms can then automate responses, such as initiating credential rotations, blocking suspicious IPs, or creating tickets for further investigation based on ThreatNG's alerts.
Example: ThreatNG detects that pipeline-executor@example.com (an NHI email) has been mentioned in a new ransomware gang's activity on the dark web. This high-severity alert is fed into the SIEM, which then triggers a SOAR playbook to automatically suspend the associated pipeline account and notify the DevOps team for immediate investigation.
By combining its external visibility of "NHI Email Exposure" with the internal controls and automation offered by complementary solutions, ThreatNG would enable a more robust and proactive approach to securing the often-overlooked non-human identities.
