Preemptive Cybersecurity

Preemptive cybersecurity is an advanced security strategy that anticipates and neutralizes cyber threats before they can materialize into active incidents. It goes beyond traditional reactive models, which respond to attacks after they have already begun, and even beyond proactive measures, which focus on vulnerability management and hardening defenses. Instead, preemptive cybersecurity uses sophisticated technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), to predict, prevent, and disrupt potential attacks at their earliest stages.

Key Components and Strategies

This approach involves several core techniques:

Predictive Threat Intelligence

This involves the use of AI and ML to analyze vast amounts of data—including network traffic, system logs, and external threat feeds—to identify patterns and indicators of future attacks. By recognizing the early stages of a threat actor's reconnaissance or planning, the system can predict and block the attack before it is launched.

Automated Moving Target Defense (AMTD)

AMTD is a technique that dynamically and randomly changes the IT environment's configuration to make it unpredictable for attackers. Altering IP addresses, network paths, or system settings makes it incredibly difficult for adversaries to map out and exploit vulnerabilities. This disruption forces attackers to restart their reconnaissance from scratch, effectively thwarting their efforts.

Advanced Deception Technologies

This strategy uses "honeypots" and other lures to deceive and misdirect attackers. These are decoy systems or files designed to mimic valuable assets, attracting attackers and allowing security teams to observe their tactics and gather intelligence without risking tangible assets.

Continuous Exposure Management

Preemptive cybersecurity also involves continuously identifying, prioritizing, and mitigating vulnerabilities and misconfigurations to prevent potential security threats. This helps reduce the overall attack surface, making it harder for threats to gain entry into the network in the first place.

ThreatNG is a security solution that aligns with preemptive cybersecurity by shifting the focus from reacting to an attack to preventing it before it can happen. By continuously and autonomously discovering and assessing an organization's external digital footprint, ThreatNG helps identify and neutralize potential entry points for attackers. This is a core tenet of preemptive defense.

External Discovery

ThreatNG’s external discovery capabilities provide a crucial foundation for preemptive cybersecurity by revealing an organization's attack surface from an attacker's perspective, without needing internal access. This helps to identify unknown or forgotten assets that could be exploited.

• Domain Intelligence: ThreatNG analyzes a company's domains and related assets to find potential threats. For example, it can identify a newly registered domain that is a close permutation of the company’s name, such as "mycompany-helpdesk.net," and flag it as a potential phishing site. This allows the organization to take preemptive action, such as requesting a takedown, before a phishing campaign can even begin.

• Code & Mobile App Exposure: It discovers public code repositories and mobile apps, then scans them for sensitive data. An example of this is finding an exposed API key or a database password that a developer accidentally committed to a public GitHub repository. This information enables a security team to modify the credentials before an attacker can exploit them to gain unauthorized access.

External Assessment

ThreatNG's external assessments directly support preemptive cybersecurity by providing a continuous, objective measure of an organization's risk.

• Web Application Hijack Susceptibility: The tool analyzes external-facing web applications to identify potential entry points for attackers. For instance, it can detect an unpatched vulnerability in a login portal or an exposed internal admin page. This enables the organization to patch the vulnerability or secure the page before it's exploited.

• Breach & Ransomware Susceptibility: This score is derived from various factors, including exposed sensitive ports, known vulnerabilities, compromised credentials on the dark web, and ransomware events. ThreatNG might detect that an organization has an open SSH port that is vulnerable to a known attack, or that employee credentials are for sale on the dark web. This allows the company to take action to close the port or force a password reset, preventing a potential breach.

Reporting & Continuous Monitoring

Preemptive cybersecurity requires constant vigilance, which is where ThreatNG's reporting and monitoring are essential. It provides a real-time, comprehensive view of the external attack surface, enabling security teams to be proactive rather than reactive. It continuously monitors an organization's external attack surface and provides executive and technical reports, enabling security teams to make informed decisions and prioritize their efforts before an incident occurs.

Investigation Modules

ThreatNG's investigation modules allow security teams to drill down into specific findings and take preemptive action.

• Sensitive Code Exposure: This module identifies and analyzes code exposed in public repositories. For example, it might find a snippet of code containing a hardcoded AWS key that could give an attacker access to a cloud environment. The organization can then immediately rotate the key, preventing a cloud breach.

• Dark Web Presence: This module proactively searches the dark web for compromised credentials. If a company email address and password from a previous data breach are found on a dark web forum, ThreatNG will flag it. The organization can then force a password change for that employee and investigate for any suspicious activity, preventing a potential account takeover.

Intelligence Repositories

ThreatNG uses its intelligence repositories, known as DarCache, to enhance its preemptive capabilities by providing a comprehensive context of external threats.

• DarCache Vulnerability: This repository provides a holistic and proactive approach to managing external vulnerabilities. It combines data from multiple sources, including verified Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploits. This allows a security team not only to be aware of a vulnerability but also to understand how it can be exploited in the wild, enabling them to prioritize its remediation.

• DarCache Ransomware: By tracking over 70 ransomware gangs and their activities, this repository allows organizations to stay ahead of emerging ransomware tactics and prepare their defenses.

Complementary Solutions

ThreatNG can work with complementary solutions to enhance an organization’s preemptive security posture.

• With a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solution: ThreatNG's external threat intelligence can be fed into a SIEM. For example, if ThreatNG identifies a new, actively exploited vulnerability affecting a web server, the SIEM can prioritize and alert on any suspicious activity targeting that server. The SIEM provides the internal context (log data, user activity), while ThreatNG provides the external threat context.

• With an Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solution, if ThreatNG detects that an employee's credentials are on the dark web, an EDR solution can be used to monitor the employee's endpoint for any suspicious login attempts or lateral movement, providing a more comprehensive picture of the threat. ThreatNG delivers the "why" (compromised credentials), and the EDR offers the "how" (the specific actions on the endpoint).

• With a Vulnerability Management solution: ThreatNG can identify external vulnerabilities, such as an open sensitive port or a misconfigured cloud bucket, and a traditional vulnerability management solution can then be used to perform an authenticated, internal scan on that asset to provide an even deeper level of detail for remediation.