Threat Exposure Management (TEM)
Threat Exposure Management (TEM) is a comprehensive, cyclical cybersecurity discipline that proactively identifies, prioritizes, and mitigates security weaknesses across an organization's entire digital ecosystem. It is an evolution beyond traditional vulnerability management, shifting the focus from simply reporting flaws to actively managing and reducing the organization's total risk exposure from an external, adversarial viewpoint.
Core Principles of Threat Exposure Management
TEM is often implemented as a Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) program, relying on several key principles:
Adversary Perspective: TEM operates with an "outside-in" view, continuously conducting reconnaissance as a real attacker would. This ensures that security teams prioritize weaknesses that are readily accessible and exploitable from the internet.
Continuous Discovery: The foundation of TEM is the relentless, purely external, unauthenticated discovery of all digital assets belonging to the organization. This constant monitoring process is vital for uncovering assets that are forgotten, unknown (Shadow IT), or misconfigured.
Risk Prioritization: TEM moves beyond raw technical severity scores (such as CVSS) to prioritize exposures based on their real-world exploitability and business impact. This is achieved by fusing technical vulnerability data with high-fidelity external threat intelligence.
Key Exposure Types Managed by TEM
TEM is an umbrella concept that addresses several distinct categories of external risk:
System-Exposure: The risk that internal computing resources are inadvertently accessible to the public internet due to misconfiguration. TEM identifies and prioritizes assets such as a Corporate Internet-Exposed Gateway Device or a Directly Connected Internal System.
Credential-Dump Exposure: This is the validated risk arising from the theft and exposure of authentication materials—passwords, API keys, or session tokens—on the dark web. TEM tracks these leaks to prevent attackers from using a pre-compromised key for unauthorized access.
Source-Code Exposure: This involves the risk of proprietary software code or embedded hard-coded credentials being inadvertently made public on platforms like GitHub. This provides an attacker with a blueprint for exploitation.
Brand Impersonation Exposure: This exposure arises when external entities fraudulently use an organization's brand identity for malicious purposes, such as setting up typo-squatted domains. These attacks exploit human trust rather than technical flaws.
Ransomware Exposure: This specifically addresses the risk associated with the data-extortion component of modern ransomware. TEM monitors for evidence that an organization's data (or a third party's) has been successfully compromised and published on a leak site.
TEM's Role in Remediation and Response
TEM's ultimate goal is to mobilize the organization to neutralize the confirmed threats quickly.
Threat-Informed Vulnerability Management (TIVM): This is the prioritization method TEM uses to ensure limited resources are focused on exposures most likely to be leveraged by threat actors.
Containment and Mitigation: TEM drives rapid response by supplying validated data to security tools. For instance, when a Credential-Dump Exposure is validated, TEM triggers immediate revocation, rotation, or blocking of the affected credential. When a malicious Lookalike Domain is found, TEM initiates takedown requests to neutralize the threat.
Third-Party Risk: TEM extends these processes to the supply chain, continuously assessing a Contractor or Vendor-Managed System and alerting the organization to risks such as Infected Vendor-Owned Devices.
TEM transforms reactive vulnerability management into proactive risk mitigation by providing security teams with the necessary decisive security insight to manage and neutralize external threats.
Threat Exposure Management (TEM) is a proactive discipline, and ThreatNG is specifically designed to execute its core processes by providing a comprehensive, external-adversary view of an organization’s risk. This approach continuously transforms reactive vulnerability management into proactive risk mitigation.
The Role of ThreatNG in Threat Exposure Management
ThreatNG executes TEM through a systematic cycle of discovery, assessment, and mobilization, ensuring that the organization manages risks originating outside its network.
External Discovery and Continuous Monitoring
ThreatNG’s foundational capability is External Discovery, which involves purely external unauthenticated discovery using no connectors. This means it continuously scans the public internet to map the entire attack surface—domains, IP ranges, certificates, and cloud assets—just as an attacker would.
Continuous Monitoring: This process is non-stop, ensuring that when new assets spin up (such as a forgotten development server) or existing assets change state (such as a private code repository becoming public), the exposure is immediately noted.
Asset Identification: Discovery identifies critical assets, such as subdomains and associated IP addresses, leading to the identification of a Corporate Internet Exposed Gateway Device.
Exposure Detection Example: This discovery process would find the existence of public code repositories, whether officially sanctioned or accidentally created by an employee, which is essential for mitigating Public Source Code Repository Company Sanctioned or Public Source Code Repository Employee Created risks.
External Assessment and Security Ratings
The platform translates raw findings into actionable intelligence through detailed External Assessments and security ratings. These ratings give security teams an instant understanding of the impact:
Cyber Risk Exposure: This rating focuses on infrastructure and systems. For example, a high score is flagged for a Directly Connected Internal System where Domain Intelligence reveals an exposed, sensitive port (such as RDP or SSH), indicating an immediate, exploitable access path. The assessment links this exposure to Known Vulnerabilities in the identified software.
Data Leak Susceptibility: This rating is driven by the potential for sensitive information to be exposed. For instance, it would be high for a Corporate Cloud Connected System if Cloud and SaaS Exposure discovers an open, misconfigured cloud storage bucket (e.g., an AWS S3 bucket), revealing the potential for sensitive data leakage, such as Corporate Bank Account Routing Information.
BEC & Phishing Susceptibility: This score indicates the risk of business compromise via social engineering. Domain Intelligence heavily influences it, specifically the detection of a Phishing Indicator Domain via Domain Name Permutations that use targeted keywords like "login" or "secure".
Brand Damage Susceptibility: This rating captures risks that directly harm public perception and revenue. It would highlight a Counterfeit Product Offered For Sale Or Use, as it actively tracks brand abuse across external sites and marketplaces.
Intelligence Repositories
ThreatNG uses proprietary Intelligence Repositories to ingest and process data from the dark web, hacker forums, and other underground sources.
Compromised Credentials (DarCache Rupture): This repository is crucial for addressing exposures such as Credentials Leaked With Hostname. It provides immediate confirmation that credentials are in the wild, enabling proactive password resets.
Example: If this repository detects a Vendor System Dump With Credentials Offered Privately, the security team receives immediate confirmation of a third-party security failure impacting their access.
Ransomware Groups and Activities (DarCache Ransomware): This repository tracks the activities of numerous ransomware gangs, providing source data for detecting a Ransom Dump Supplier or a Ransom Dump Customer.
Investigation Modules and Reporting
ThreatNG provides specialized investigation tools and high-impact Reporting that transforms chaotic external data into decisive security insight.
Reconnaissance Hub: This module is the unified command interface that combines Overwatch's portfolio-wide view with Advanced Search's granular search.
Example: If a critical vulnerability (a CVE) is announced, Overwatch instantly shows the organization's exposure across all assets, including those managed by vendors. An analyst then uses the Reconnaissance Hub to pivot to Advanced Search, filtering for all systems related to a Contractor Or Vendor Managed System to prioritize remediation.
Advanced Search: This tool facilitates detailed, granular investigations.
Example: To investigate a potential Homoglyph Attack Domain, an analyst uses Advanced Search to filter all Domain Name Permutations for homoglyphs, rapidly validating the threat before it can be used in a targeted phishing campaign.
Cooperation with Complementary Solutions
ThreatNG's validated and prioritized external exposure data is designed to enhance the effectiveness of other security tools, ensuring automated and targeted response.
Working with SOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response): When ThreatNG’s Code Secret Exposure feature finds a Public Source Code Repository Employee Created containing exposed API keys, this critical finding can be automatically sent to a complementary SOAR platform. The SOAR platform can immediately initiate a workflow to revoke the exposed keys, notify the code repository owner, and open a ticket, automating the response.
Working with SIEM (Security Information and Event Management): If Dark Web Presence detects a large volume of Infected Employee Owned Device Corporate Credentials from a data leak, the entire list of compromised email addresses can be streamed to a complementary SIEM solution. The SIEM can then correlate these external leaks with internal login attempts, instantly creating a high-fidelity alert if an attacker attempts to use the stolen credentials.
Working with Ticketing or GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance) Systems: Findings from the External GRC Assessment—such as the identification of a Remote Site Owned System Presumed Connected running vulnerable software—can be automatically routed to a complementary Ticketing or GRC system. This ensures the exposure is formally logged, assigned to the correct IT or subsidiary team for remediation, and tracked through the organization’s formal risk framework.
