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Today’s threat environment is constantly evolving, and a proactive cybersecurity approach has become essential. Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) can help modern organizations stay ahead of emerging risks.
This article provides actionable steps for implementing CTEM in your own organization to strengthen your cybersecurity posture.
What is Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)?
CTEM is a comprehensive program designed to reduce an organization’s exposure to cyberattacks. Its continuous, proactive approach makes it more effective than traditional vulnerability management programs, which typically scan periodically for threats.
Understanding CTEM Fundamentals
CTEM prioritizes continuous, real-time threat and vulnerability assessment rather than relying on periodic security reviews.
It is comprised of five stages, which include:
- Scoping, which involves understanding the attack surface.
- Discovery, which involves analyzing and assessing each asset for potential risks.
- Prioritization, which involves assessing the level of a known threat against the importance of assets impacted.
- Validation, which assesses the likelihood of an attack occurring.
- Mobilization, which is designed to ensure that everyone understands their roles and responsibilities within the program.
The Shift from Reactive to Proactive
Over the years, many modern organizations have evolved from a reactive cybersecurity to a proactive, always-on approach. This shift has been critical, as it ensures that organizations can act quickly to identify, contain, and mitigate threats. This can prevent them from spiraling into bigger issues down the line.
Key Components of CTEM
Several key elements make CTEM effective. Each individual element works to enhance an organization’s cybersecurity posture.
Continuous Vulnerability Identification
CTEM involves identifying vulnerabilities as they emerge. It relies heavily on automated vulnerability assessment and scanning tools to continuously scan systems in search of issues. This may include missing patches, outdated software, configuration errors, and open ports and services.
To ensure it provides the most up-to-date information, CTEM integrates with real-time threat intelligence feeds. This means organizations can be immediately alerted to new vulnerabilities that could be exploited.
Risk Prioritization
Not all vulnerabilities are equally critical, and security teams must often work with limited resources. Organizations can determine a threat’s risk level by considering its potential impact and likelihood of exploitation.
Prioritizing responses to vulnerabilities according to their risk level means organizations help to reduce potential damage as much as possible.
Remediation Strategies
CTEM prioritizes the rapid identification of vulnerabilities and quick and efficient response plans. Once vulnerabilities have been prioritized according to their risk level, security experts can apply the relevant patches and updates as soon as possible.
If patches cannot be applied immediately, security experts may use temporary mitigation techniques. Such techniques may include disconnecting vulnerable systems from the wider network or disabling ports. This can significantly reduce the potential attack surface.
Implementing CTEM in Your Organization
If you are interested in implementing CTEM in your organization, there are some practical steps you can take first. This can help to ensure a smooth transition.
Building a CTEM Team
Building an effective CTEM team is crucial. A successful team requires a combination of people with specialized expertise in areas such as threat intelligence, cloud security, and offensive security. It also requires professionals with broader technical knowledge.
A successful CTEM team also involves significant cross-department collaboration. Specifically, it typically involves working alongside professionals specializing in security, IT operations, legal and compliance, and executive leadership.
Integrating CTEM Tools
Many tools support CTEM processes, but automated vulnerability scanners are the backbone of CTEM. They run continuously, identifying vulnerabilities in real-time. This enables quick prioritization and remediation.
Incident response platforms complement this by streamlining responses to detected security incidents. They also facilitate cross-departmental collaboration, improving overall efficiency.
Establishing a Feedback Loop
Attackers constantly evolve their tactics to make threats more sophisticated. At the same time, an organization’s IT infrastructure and workforce are constantly changing, creating new security risks.
Regular evaluations allow organizations to adjust their CTEM practices in response to emerging threats. This helps to make organizations more resilient to future risks and creates a positive feedback loop.
Benefits of Adopting CTEM
Adopting CTEM within an organization can significantly boost organizational resilience and risk management.
Increased Resilience Against Evolving Threats
By reducing the time between vulnerability discovery and mitigation, CTEM allows organizations to adapt to new threats quickly. This increases organizational resilience against evolving threats and reduces the impact of potential attacks.
Improved Risk Management and Compliance
In addition to helping organizations minimize security incidents, CTEM supports regulatory compliance and enhances risk management efforts.
It does this by helping organizations to maintain up-to-date cybersecurity defenses that align with best practices and regulations. This helps to meet standards such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS.
Promoting Proactive Cybersecurity with Continuous Threat Exposure Management
CTEM promotes a proactive approach to cybersecurity by continuously monitoring IT infrastructure to identify and mitigate threats and vulnerabilities in real-time. This helps prioritize risks more effectively and ultimately limits their potential impact.
Implementing Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) alongside other cybersecurity solutions, such as MDR, can significantly enhance organizations’ cybersecurity strategies.