Sherlock Holmes is famous for his incredible ability to sort through mounds of information; he removes the irrelevant and exposes the hidden truth. His philosophy is plain yet brilliant: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Rather than following every lead, Holmes focuses on the details that are needed to move him to the solution.

In cybersecurity, exposure validation mirrors Holmes' approach: Security teams are usually presented with an overwhelming list of vulnerabilities, yet not every vulnerability presents a real threat. Just as Holmes discards irrelevant clues, security teams must eliminate exposures that are unlikely to be exploited or do not pose significant risks.

Exposure validation (sometimes called Adversarial Exposure Validation) enables teams to concentrate on the most significant issues and minimize distractions. Similar to Holmes' deductive reasoning, validation of exposures directs organizations toward vulnerabilities that, if unaddressed, have the potential to result in a security breach.

Why Exposure Validation is Critical for Your Organization

So, before going into more technical details, let's answer the main question: Why is checking for exposures important for every organization, regardless of industry and size?

• Reduces risk by focusing on the exploitable vulnerabilities.
• Optimizes resources by prioritizing the most critical issues.
• Improves security posture with continuous validation.
• Meets compliance and audit requirements.

The Holes in Your Armor: What Threat Exposures Mean

In cybersecurity, exposure is a vulnerability, misconfiguration, or security gap existing in an organization's IT environment, which could be used by any threat actor. Examples are software vulnerabilities, weak encryption, misconfigured security controls, inadequate access controls, and unpatched assets. Think of these exposures as the holes in your armor- if left unmitigated, they provide an entry point for attackers to infiltrate your systems.

The Role of Exposure Validation: From Theory to Practice

Exposure validation runs continuous tests to see if the discovered vulnerabilities can actually be exploited and help security teams prioritize the most critical risks. Not all vulnerabilities are created equal, and many can be mitigated by controls already in place or may not be unexploitable in your environment. Consider an organization finding a critical SQLi vulnerability in one of its web applications. The security team attempts to exploit this vulnerability in a simulated attack scenario - exposure validation. They find that all attack variants in the attack are effectively blocked by existing security controls such as web application firewalls (WAFs). This insight allows the team to prioritize other vulnerabilities that are not mitigated by current defenses.

Although CVSS and EPSS scores give a theoretical risk based on the score, it does not mirror the real-world exploitability. Exposure validation bridges this chasm by simulating actual attack scenarios and turns raw vulnerability data into actionable insight while ensuring teams put in efforts where it matters most.

Stop Chasing Ghosts: Focus on Real Cyber Threats

Adversarial exposure validation provides crucial context through simulated attacks and testing of security controls.

For instance, a financial services firm identifies 1,000 vulnerabilities in its network. If these had not been validated, prioritizing remediation would be daunting. However, with the use of attack simulations, it becomes firm that 90% of those vulnerabilities are mitigated by currently working controls like NGFW, IPS, and EDR. The remaining 100 turn out to be immediately exploitable and pose a high risk against critical assets such as customer databases.

The organization thus can concentrate its resources and time on remedying those 100 high-risk vulnerabilities and achieve dramatic improvement in security.

Automating Sherlock: Scaling Exposure Validation with Technology

Manual validation is no longer feasible in today's complex IT environments—this is where automation becomes essential.

Why is automation essential for exposure validation?

• Scalability: Automation validates thousands of vulnerabilities quickly, far beyond manual capacity.
• Consistency: Automated tools provide repeatable and error-free results.
• Speed: Automation accelerates validation. This means quicker remediation and reduced exposure time.

Exposure validation tools include Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) and Penetration Testing Automation. These tools enable the organization to validate exposures at scale by simulating real-world attack scenarios that test security controls against tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by threat actors.

On the other hand, automation frees up the burden on security teams that are sometimes swamped by the huge volume of vulnerabilities and alerts. By addressing only the most critical exposures, the team is far more efficient and productive; hence, bringing down risks associated with burnout.

Common Concerns About Exposure Validation

Despite the advantages, many organizations could be hesitant to establish exposure validation. Let's deal with a few common concerns:

⮩ "Isn't exposure validation hard to implement?"

Not at all. Automated tools easily integrate with your existing systems with minimal disruption to your current processes.
⮩ "Why is this necessary when we have a vulnerability management system already?"

While vulnerability management simply identifies weaknesses, exposure validation identifies vulnerabilities that could actually be exploited. Resulting in exposure validation helps in prioritizing meaningful risks.

⮩ "Is exposure validation only for large enterprises?"
No, it's scalable for organizations of any size, regardless of resources.

Cracking the Case: Integrating Exposure Validation into Your CTEM Strategy

The biggest return on investment in integrating exposure validation comes when it's done within a Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) program.

CTEM consists of five key phases: Scoping, Discovery, Prioritization, Validation, and Mobilization. Each phase plays a critical role; however, the validation phase is particularly important because it separates theoretical risks from real, actionable threats. This is echoed in the 2024 Gartner® Strategic Roadmap for Managing Threat Exposure: what initially appears to be an "unmanageably large issue" will quickly become an "impossible task" without validation.

Closing the Case: Eliminate the Impossible, Focus on the Critical

Exposure validation is like Sherlock Holmes' method of deduction—it helps you eliminate the impossible and focus on the critical. Even Mr. Spock echoed this logic, remarking, "An ancestor of mine maintained that if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." By validating which exposures are exploitable and which are mitigated by existing controls, organizations can prioritize remediation and strengthen their security posture efficiently.

Apply this timeless wisdom to your cybersecurity strategy, take the first step toward eliminating the impossible, and uncover the truth of your real threats. Discover how the Picus Security Validation Platform seamlessly integrates with your existing systems, the broadest exposure validation capabilities through advanced capabilities like Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS), Automated Penetration Testing, and Red Teaming to help you reduce risk, save time, and fortify your defenses against evolving threats.

Note: This article was written by Dr. Suleyman Ozarslan, co-founder and VP of Research at Picus Security.

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