Operations Email Accounts

In the context of cybersecurity, operations email accounts are non-human accounts used to manage, monitor, and maintain the day-to-day functions of an organization's IT and business processes. Automated systems and IT teams often use these accounts to receive alerts, status updates, and reports about the health and performance of critical infrastructure. They are distinct from individual user accounts as they are tied to a function or a specific tool rather than a person.

Operations email accounts pose a significant cybersecurity risk because they often have access to a wide range of sensitive information and systems. For example, an account receiving system logs could be an entry point for an attacker to gather intelligence about the network. Similarly, if a threat actor compromises an operations email account, they could use it to send malicious commands, manipulate systems, or monitor network activity without being detected. Because humans do not use these accounts for direct communication, they may not be subject to the same scrutiny as personal accounts, such as regular password audits or MFA, making them a prime target for attackers seeking a persistent presence in a network.

ThreatNG helps secure operations email accounts by providing a continuous, external-focused view of their security risks. It identifies and assesses exposures from an attacker’s perspective, enabling organizations to manage these non-human identities proactively.

External Discovery and Assessment

ThreatNG's unauthenticated discovery engine finds publicly exposed email addresses without needing any internal credentials or connectors. It groups these under the "NHI Email Exposure" category, with specific labels like ops, system, and Automation. The external assessment then analyzes these accounts for various risks.

A Data Leak Susceptibility score is derived from ThreatNG's digital risk intelligence, which includes a Dark Web Presence module that tracks compromised credentials.

• Example: ThreatNG could discover the email ops-alerts@example.com in an archived web page. It would then check its compromised credential database and find that the email and its password were part of a recent data breach, leading to a high data leak susceptibility score.

Cyber Risk Exposure considers parameters like sensitive ports and compromised credentials. A Code Secret Exposure score is also factored in, as it discovers code repositories and investigates their contents for sensitive data.

• Example: The platform might find the email automation@example.com embedded in a public Git repository along with a plaintext password or API key. This would be flagged as a critical risk, contributing to the organization’s overall cyber risk exposure score.

Continuous Monitoring and Reporting

ThreatNG's platform provides continuous monitoring of the external attack surface, digital risk, and security ratings of all organizations. This ensures that any new exposure of an operations email account, such as its sudden appearance on the dark web or in a new code repository, is detected in real-time.

The platform provides a variety of reports, including Executive, Technical, and Prioritized reports. These reports detail the identified risks, their severity (High, Medium, Low, and Informational), and offer practical recommendations.

• Example: A prioritized report would list the exposed system@example.com email as a "High" risk, providing context on where it was found and offering guidance on how to secure it, such as a password change or the use of multi-factor authentication.

Investigation Modules and Intelligence Repositories

ThreatNG’s investigation modules provide deep context for exposed operations email accounts. The Archived Web Pages module, for instance, can uncover emails that were once publicly accessible but have since been removed. This helps find and secure legacy accounts that may have been forgotten. The Dark Web Presence module monitors for organizational mentions and associated compromised credentials, which is crucial for identifying if an operations email has been compromised and is being traded or sold.

ThreatNG's intelligence repositories, known as DarCache, are continuously updated and provide essential context for assessing risk.

• DarCache Rupture tracks compromised credentials, allowing ThreatNG to confirm if a discovered ops or Automation email was part of a data breach.

• DarCache Vulnerability provides intelligence on vulnerabilities, their exploitability, and potential impact. This can be used to show if an operations email is linked to a vulnerable system.

Complementary Solutions

ThreatNG's external focus can work in conjunction with complementary solutions to provide a comprehensive security strategy.

• With a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) System: ThreatNG can flag an exposed ops email with a high-risk score and send an alert to a SIEM. The SIEM can then correlate this external finding with internal logs to look for any suspicious login attempts or unauthorized activities from that account, which might not have been flagged otherwise.

• With an Identity and Access Management (IAM) Solution: When ThreatNG identifies an admin-system email that has been compromised on the dark web, it can trigger an automated action in a complementary IAM solution. This action could immediately disable the account or force a password reset, preventing an attacker from using the exposed credentials for lateral movement.

• With a Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platform: A SOAR platform can be configured to take a high-priority alert from ThreatNG about an exposed jenkins email and automatically initiate a playbook. This could include creating an incident ticket, notifying the DevOps team, and automatically removing the exposed email from the public repository where it was found.