Threat Validation
Threat Validation in cybersecurity is the rigorous, evidence-based process of confirming that a discovered security vulnerability, misconfiguration, or exposure is exploitable in the current environment and poses a genuine threat to the organization.
It is a crucial step in the Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) framework that bridges the gap between theoretical risk (what a vulnerability scanner might report) and practical risk (what an attacker can actually achieve).
Core Principles of Threat Validation
Exploitability Confirmation: This is the primary goal. Validation moves beyond the simple presence of a vulnerability (e.g., "Software X is outdated") to confirm that the specific attack path to exploit it is viable.
Example: A system may be vulnerable to a specific CVE, but if the necessary communication ports are closed or the required service is disabled, the threat is not validated as exploitable.
Adversary Context: Validation is always performed from an adversary's perspective—usually unauthenticated and external—to measure what an attacker can achieve before detection. This often involves techniques like:
Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS): Safely running automated, known attack scenarios to see if current security controls successfully block or detect the threat.
Proof-of-Concept Testing: Directly testing an exposure (e.g., attempting to log in with a leaked credential) to confirm its validity and usefulness to an attacker.
Security Control Efficacy Measurement: Validation provides a definitive test of the organization's defenses. If a threat is successfully validated, it means existing security controls (e.g., firewalls, EDR, SIEM rules) failed to prevent or detect the intrusion attempt. This outcome is a crucial metric for justifying remediation.
Prioritization Data: A validated threat automatically receives a higher priority score than an unvalidated or theoretical one. Security teams prioritize resources based on this validated risk, ensuring that the vulnerabilities proven to be exploitable and accessible are fixed first.
Threat Validation replaces assumptions with evidence, ensuring that time, effort, and budget are spent mitigating threats that have been confirmed as real and immediate.
Threat Validation is the critical process of confirming a discovered exposure is genuinely exploitable and represents a viable attack path. ThreatNG is purpose-built to execute this validation across the external attack surface by collecting and presenting definitive evidence and threat intelligence.
ThreatNG's Role in Threat Validation
1. Investigation Modules (The Act of Validation)
The Reconnaissance Hub provides the tools used to actively confirm and gather evidence of a viable threat, which is the definition of validation.
Sensitive Code Exposure: This module performs a direct validation check for high-value secrets.
Example of ThreatNG Helping: An analyst uses this module to find a public repository associated with the organization and discovers a plaintext AWS Access Key ID and Database Credential (under Code Secret Exposure). This finding is the strongest possible validation—it provides the exact key an attacker would use—and immediately confirms the threat is exploitable.
Domain Intelligence (Subdomain Intelligence): This module validates the existence of unauthorized or unsecured administrative access.
Example: The team uses Subdomain Intelligence to verify that an exposed Development Environment subdomain running outdated software has an accessible Admin Page. This confirms that the configuration control has failed and an attacker has a clear path to Initial Access.
2. External Assessment (Validating Control Failures)
ThreatNG’s External Assessment capabilities validate the threat by confirming that standard security controls have failed from an external perspective, establishing that the exposure is reachable.
Example of ThreatNG Helping: The assessment finds high Subdomain Takeover Susceptibility (validated via Domain Intelligence). This confirms that a critical control (DNS record management) has failed and that an attacker has a clear exploit path to seize the domain.
Example of ThreatNG Helping: The assessment identifies a critical finding under Cyber Risk Exposure: an exposed Sensitive Port (like RDP or VNC) on a public-facing asset, combined with a finding of associated Compromised Credentials from the Dark Web Presence module. This dual finding validates a complete, high-confidence attack chain: the external port is open, and the authentication token is compromised.
3. Intelligence Repositories (Validating Immediacy and Likelihood)
The Intelligence Repositories (DarCache) are used to validate the immediacy and likelihood of the threat, ensuring that the validation process is threat-informed.
Example of ThreatNG Helping: An exposure is found on a public-facing web server. ThreatNG uses DarCache Vulnerability intelligence to confirm the associated CVE is actively being exploited in the wild (KEV status). This KEV validation proves the threat is not theoretical but an active exploit, giving the security team immediate justification to prioritize the fix.
4. Continuous Monitoring and Reporting (Verification and Evidence)
Continuous Monitoring handles the re-validation, and Reporting documents the evidence required to drive remediation.
Example of ThreatNG Helping: After a threat is validated and patched, Continuous Monitoring automatically re-scans the specific asset to confirm the patch was successful and that the danger is gone. If the threat is still detected, the ticket is automatically reopened and escalated, ensuring the validation remains in place until the exposure is truly closed.
Cooperation with Complementary Solutions
ThreatNG's validated findings are high-fidelity alerts that empower complementary solutions to enact effective, targeted defenses.
ThreatNG and a Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) Platform:
Cooperation: ThreatNG provides the validated alert trigger and the evidence required for the SOAR platform to execute automated playbooks.
Example: A Sensitive Code Exposure finding (e.g., an exposed API key) is validated as real. ThreatNG sends a high-priority alert to the SOAR platform, which uses the key ID provided by ThreatNG to automatically execute a playbook that revokes the key at the provider level (e.g., AWS, Azure) and generates a ticket for the source code removal, providing both immediate and long-term remediation.
ThreatNG and a Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Solution:
Cooperation: ThreatNG informs the SIEM of validated external targets and threats, enabling the SIEM to focus on internal monitoring.
Example: ThreatNG validates that a Compromised Credential from Dark Web Presence is circulating. This validated threat is sent to the SIEM, which uses the specific username/credential as a high-fidelity Indicator of Compromise (IOC) to monitor internal network logs. If a login attempt occurs using that validated credential, the SIEM generates an immediate, high-priority alert, proving the external threat has materialized internally
