Highlights of Our CISO Dinner
Upgrading struggling vulnerability management programs to Threat Exposure Management, with Host, CISO Al Lindseth formerly from Plains All American Pipeline and PWC - 6 minute podcast
You might think an attack surface mapper is just another name for a vulnerability scanner, but they serve two very different purposes. A scanner tests the assets you already know about for specific weaknesses. An attack surface mapper answers a more fundamental question: What assets do I even have? It acts as your digital scout, continuously scanning the internet to discover every server, cloud service, and API connected to your organization—especially the ones you’ve forgotten. This discovery process is the critical first step. It creates the comprehensive inventory you need before you can even begin to think about prioritizing vulnerabilities or validating your security controls.
Before you can defend your organization, you have to know what you’re defending. Think of your digital presence as a sprawling estate with countless doors, windows, and access points. Your attack surface is the sum of all these potential entry points that an attacker could use to get inside. Attack surface mapping is the process of creating a detailed blueprint of that estate. It’s about systematically identifying, analyzing, and monitoring every single digital asset that could be exploited.
This goes far beyond just listing your known websites and servers. It’s a deep exploration to uncover everything connected to your organization online—from forgotten marketing sites and old test servers to third-party APIs and sprawling cloud infrastructure. The goal is to see your organization exactly as an attacker would, giving you the visibility needed to move from a reactive security posture to a proactive one. Without a complete map, you’re operating with significant blind spots, leaving doors wide open for threats.
This is where you get down to the specifics of what makes up your attack surface. Your digital footprint is the sum of all your internet-facing assets. This includes the obvious things like your corporate website and employee login portals, but it also covers a much wider range of components: cloud storage buckets, IoT devices, mobile apps, code repositories, and even the digital supply chain services you rely on.
Attack surface mapping is the practice of discovering and cataloging this entire footprint. It’s about creating a comprehensive inventory so you know exactly what you have and where it is. This process helps you manage your total attack surface by turning unknown risks into known, manageable assets. Without this visibility, shadow IT and forgotten systems can become easy entry points for attackers.
So, how do you actually map this vast digital landscape? That’s where attack surface mappers come in. These are specialized tools designed to automate the reconnaissance process, essentially acting as your digital scouts. They continuously scan the internet to find assets associated with your organization, piecing together a complete picture of your external-facing systems.
Once these tools identify your assets, they begin gathering more detailed information. This can include taking screenshots of web pages, identifying the software and services running on a server, checking for publicly leaked credentials, and scanning for open ports that could be exploited. The ultimate goal is to pinpoint which parts of your system are most exposed and need immediate security testing. This information is critical for effective vulnerability and threat prioritization, allowing your team to focus on fixing the most critical weaknesses first.
Attack surface mapping isn’t a single action but a continuous process of discovery, analysis, and management. Think of it as creating a live, detailed map of your organization’s entire digital presence from an attacker’s perspective. It systematically uncovers every internet-facing asset—known and unknown—to understand where you might be vulnerable. This process breaks down into a few key phases, starting with discovering what you own and then gathering detailed intelligence on each asset to build a clear picture of your security posture.
This first step is all about inventory. You can’t protect what you don’t know you have. Attack surface mapping begins by systematically identifying every digital asset connected to your organization that’s exposed to the internet. This includes the obvious things like your corporate websites and servers, but it also dives deeper to find cloud services, APIs, subdomains, and even forgotten development servers. The goal is to create a comprehensive and continuously updated catalog of your entire digital footprint. This inventory forms the foundation for a strong Total Attack Surface Management strategy, ensuring there are no blind spots where an attacker could gain a foothold.
Once the assets are identified, mapping tools begin gathering intelligence on each one. This isn’t just a simple list; it’s a rich data collection process. Tools will take screenshots of websites, check public databases for leaked employee credentials associated with your domain, and scan for open ports that could be exploited. They also create visual maps to help you understand the relationships between different assets. By pulling data from various sources, these tools build a unified view of your exposure. A platform like Uni5 Xposure consolidates this information, giving your team a single place to see and manage potential risks across your entire environment.
Data collection typically falls into two categories: passive and active. Passive scanning is like being a detective using only public records. It relies on Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) to gather information without directly touching your systems. This includes analyzing DNS records, WHOIS data, and public code repositories. It’s non-intrusive and great for discovering unknown assets.
Active scanning, on the other hand, is more hands-on. It involves directly interacting with your assets to get more detailed information, like probing for open ports or testing for specific vulnerabilities. This approach provides deeper insights but needs to be done carefully. A comprehensive strategy uses both methods to get a complete and accurate picture, validating your security posture through adversarial exposure validation techniques.
Not all attack surface mappers are created equal. The right tool moves beyond simple asset lists and gives you a dynamic, contextualized view of your entire digital footprint. When evaluating solutions, look for a platform that combines comprehensive discovery with intelligent analysis. An effective mapper should act as your central command for understanding and managing exposure, turning a sea of data into clear, actionable security insights. The goal is to find a tool that doesn’t just show you what you have, but tells you what matters and what to do next.
Your digital environment is constantly changing, with new assets spinning up and down every day. Manually tracking this is impossible. That’s why automated asset discovery is non-negotiable. A strong mapper continuously scans your entire environment—including cloud, on-prem, and subsidiary networks—to identify and inventory every connected asset. This ensures your map is always up-to-date, accounting for everything from known servers to forgotten subdomains. By deploying automated discovery tools, you create a complete and current asset inventory, which is the foundation for understanding your true attack surface. This continuous process ensures nothing gets overlooked.
Your assets live in different places and generate data in various formats. An effective attack surface mapper needs to pull all this information together. It should integrate data from multiple sources, including cloud provider APIs, CMDBs, agent-based scanners, and public internet data. By consolidating this information, the tool provides a single, unified view of your entire digital footprint. This comprehensive approach is what allows attack surface management (ASM) solutions to catalog assets at scale, breaking down data silos and giving your team a complete picture of your organization’s exposure without having to switch between different tools.
Raw data is overwhelming. The best attack surface mappers translate complex asset information into intuitive visual maps and dashboards. These visualizations help you quickly understand relationships between assets, identify potential attack paths, and see where your most critical exposures lie. Clear, detailed reports are just as important. They should help your team prioritize and remediate security issues by highlighting the most critical vulnerabilities first. This visual approach makes it easier to communicate risk to stakeholders and focus your team’s efforts where they’ll have the greatest impact on your security posture.
Knowing what assets you have is the first step; knowing how they’re exposed is the next. Port scanning capabilities are essential for identifying open ports on your external assets, which are potential entry points for attackers. An effective mapper will scan for open TCP and UDP ports to reveal services that are accessible from the internet, such as web servers, databases, or remote access protocols. This helps you find and close unintentional openings in your perimeter. It also adds crucial context, helping you determine which vulnerabilities are actually exploitable versus which ones pose a lower risk.
An asset inventory becomes truly powerful when it’s enriched with threat intelligence. A top-tier attack surface mapper integrates real-time threat data to put your assets in the context of the current threat landscape. This feature connects your specific vulnerabilities to active exploits, threat actor campaigns, and emerging threats identified by security researchers. By leveraging threat intelligence, you can gain continuous visibility into which of your exposed assets are being actively targeted. This allows you to move beyond a simple vulnerability count and prioritize remediation based on genuine, immediate risk to your business.
Let’s be honest: you can’t protect what you can’t see. In today’s sprawling digital environments, keeping track of every server, cloud instance, and connected device is a monumental task. This is where attack surface mapping becomes less of a technical exercise and more of a foundational security strategy. It’s about trading guesswork for certainty. By systematically identifying and cataloging every internet-facing asset, you gain the visibility needed to make informed decisions.
This process isn’t just about creating a list; it’s about building a dynamic, comprehensive picture of your organization’s exposure. It allows you to see your network through the eyes of an attacker, pinpointing the very weaknesses they would seek to exploit. With a clear map of your digital footprint, you can move from a constant state of reaction to a confident, proactive security posture. This visibility is the first step in a modern Threat Exposure Management program, enabling you to manage your true risk and focus your resources where they matter most.
If you think you have a complete inventory of all your digital assets, you might want to think again. For many companies, a significant portion of their digital attack surface is completely unknown to security teams. This is the world of “shadow IT”—cloud services spun up by a marketing team, forgotten development servers, or third-party applications connected to your network without approval. Each one is a potential backdoor for an attacker.
Attack surface mapping is your solution to this problem. It systematically scans for and identifies all your internet-connected assets, bringing those hidden risks out of the shadows. By creating a complete and accurate asset inventory, you can ensure every part of your digital presence is monitored, managed, and secured. This isn’t just about tidying up; it’s about closing the gaps that attackers love to find before they get the chance.
Once you’ve uncovered your hidden assets, the next step is to understand their weaknesses. Attack surface mapping gives you a bird’s-eye view of your entire digital perimeter, helping you spot vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and other security gaps that create blind spots. It helps you understand where attackers might try to get in by finding weak spots before they do.
Think of it as a blueprint of your defenses from an attacker’s perspective. You can see which ports are open, what services are running, and which assets might be running outdated software. This comprehensive view allows you to move beyond simply reacting to alerts. Instead, you can start to prioritize threats based on their real-world exposure and potential impact, focusing your team’s efforts on the most critical risks to the business.
Navigating the complex web of security regulations and compliance standards is a major challenge for any organization. Frameworks like PCI DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR all have strict requirements for asset management and security controls. Proving compliance often involves a frantic, manual scramble to gather evidence and document your security posture right before an audit.
Attack surface mapping helps turn this chaotic process into a streamlined, continuous one. By providing an always-on, up-to-date inventory of all your assets and their security status, it gives you the documentation you need at your fingertips. This makes it much easier to demonstrate due diligence and show auditors that you have a firm grasp on your security landscape. It helps you not only achieve compliance but also maintain it effortlessly over time.
For too long, security has been a reactive game of cat and mouse. An alert fires, and the team scrambles to investigate and remediate, always one step behind the attacker. Attack Surface Management (ASM) fundamentally changes this dynamic. It’s a continuous process that helps you identify, monitor, and reduce cyber risks associated with your assets on an ongoing basis.
This shift from a one-time scan to continuous monitoring is what enables a truly proactive security strategy. Instead of waiting for something to break, you can identify and fix potential issues before they become critical incidents. By integrating total attack surface management into your security program, you can anticipate potential threats, validate your security controls, and methodically reduce your exposure over time, building a more resilient and defensible organization.
Attack surface mapping isn’t just another security task to check off your list; it’s the engine that drives a modern, proactive security strategy. Specifically, it’s a foundational pillar of Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM), a framework designed to help you move from a reactive cycle of patching and praying to a proactive state of control. A CTEM program helps you continuously identify, prioritize, validate, and mobilize against the threats that pose a genuine risk to your business.
Without a clear, up-to-the-minute picture of your attack surface, your CTEM program is flying blind. You can’t prioritize threats on assets you don’t know you have, and you can’t validate controls on systems that are misconfigured or forgotten. Attack surface mapping provides the essential visibility needed for the entire CTEM lifecycle. It transforms abstract risks into tangible, manageable assets and vulnerabilities, allowing you to focus your resources where they’ll have the greatest impact. Let’s break down how this works in practice.
Your digital environment is constantly changing. New cloud instances are spun up, marketing adds a new microsite, and a developer tests a new application on a public-facing server. Attack surface mapping is the process of continuously identifying and monitoring all these assets. This isn’t a one-and-done scan; it’s an ongoing effort to maintain a complete, up-to-date inventory of your digital footprint. This continuous discovery is the first and most critical step in any CTEM program. After all, you can’t protect what you can’t see. A comprehensive approach to Total Attack Surface Management ensures you have the visibility needed to manage your true exposure.
Once you have a complete inventory of your assets, the next question is, “What do I fix first?” With thousands of potential vulnerabilities, trying to patch everything is an impossible task. This is where attack surface mapping, enriched with threat intelligence, becomes a game-changer. By overlaying data on active exploits and attacker trends from sources like HiveForce Labs, you can see which vulnerabilities on your specific assets are most likely to be targeted. This allows you to move beyond CVSS scores and focus on the threats that pose an immediate danger, ensuring your team’s efforts are spent on the most pressing risks.
Identifying and prioritizing threats is only part of the solution. The final, crucial step is taking action. An effective CTEM platform uses the data from attack surface mapping to provide clear, actionable remediation guidance. Instead of just flagging a problem, it tells your team exactly what needs to be done to fix it and who should do it. This proactive approach helps you close security gaps before they can be exploited. By integrating discovery, prioritization, and remediation into a single workflow, a unified exposure management platform helps you not only find your weaknesses but also efficiently strengthen your defenses against potential attacks.
Choosing an attack surface mapper isn’t just about picking a tool; it’s about finding a partner for your security program. With so many options available, it’s easy to get lost in feature lists. The right solution goes beyond simple discovery. It should provide a clear, comprehensive, and continuous view of your entire digital footprint, helping you make sense of the noise and focus on what truly matters.
A great attack surface mapper doesn’t just show you what you have—it tells you what to do about it. It should integrate smoothly into your existing workflows, scale as your organization grows, and provide the intelligence needed to turn data into decisive action. As you evaluate different solutions, focus on four key areas: the breadth and depth of its coverage, its ability to monitor in real-time, how well it integrates with your other tools, and its capacity for intelligent automation and prioritization. These pillars will ensure you select a tool that not only identifies your assets but also strengthens your overall security posture.
You can’t protect what you can’t see. That’s why the first thing to look for is a tool that provides complete and total coverage of your attack surface. Your mapper should use automated asset discovery to continuously identify and inventory everything connected to your network—from servers and cloud instances to IoT devices and operational technology. A one-time snapshot isn’t enough; you need a solution that offers a persistent, up-to-date asset inventory. As your organization expands, your attack surface grows with it. Your chosen tool must be able to scale effortlessly, handling an increasing number of assets without a drop in performance. This ensures your total attack surface management strategy remains effective over time.
Your digital environment is constantly changing. New assets come online, configurations are updated, and software is deployed, creating a dynamic attack surface. A static map quickly becomes obsolete. This is why real-time monitoring is a critical feature. An effective mapper should provide continuous visibility into your exposed assets, allowing your team to detect new vulnerabilities and misconfigurations the moment they appear. This capability is fundamental to shifting from a reactive to a proactive security stance. By getting immediate alerts on new exposures, you can address risks before attackers have a chance to find and exploit them, significantly shortening your response time and reducing your window of vulnerability.
An attack surface mapper shouldn’t operate in a silo. To be truly effective, it must integrate seamlessly with the rest of your security stack. Look for a solution that can connect with your existing SIEM, SOAR, vulnerability scanners, and ticketing systems. This integration enriches the data from all your tools, creating a single, unified view of your security posture. For example, correlating asset data with network traffic from an NDR solution provides deeper context about potential threats. A well-integrated tool breaks down data silos, streamlines workflows, and ensures your security team can work more efficiently from a unified platform.
Discovering assets and vulnerabilities is only half the battle. The sheer volume of data can be overwhelming. A top-tier attack surface mapper uses smart automation and intelligent prioritization to help you focus on the risks that matter most. It should go beyond basic CVSS scores, incorporating threat intelligence and business context to highlight the most critical vulnerabilities. The best tools provide detailed reports and clear remediation guidance, helping your team address the most significant security issues first. This level of vulnerability and threat prioritization is what transforms raw data into an actionable, risk-reduction plan, ensuring your resources are spent where they’ll have the greatest impact.
When it comes to attack surface mapping, a few common misconceptions can hold security teams back. Believing these myths can lead to incomplete visibility and a false sense of security. Let’s clear the air and look at what attack surface mapping really is—and what it isn’t. By understanding the reality behind the process, you can build a much stronger, more proactive security posture that addresses your organization’s true exposure.
One of the most persistent myths is that attack surface mapping is a “set it and forget it” task. The reality is your digital environment is in a constant state of flux. New cloud instances are spun up, marketing adds a new subdomain, and developers deploy new applications. A single scan only gives you a snapshot in time, which becomes outdated almost immediately. Effective total attack surface management is a continuous process. It requires ongoing discovery and monitoring to keep up with changes and ensure you always have an accurate inventory of your assets and their potential exposures.
Many people mistakenly believe that attack surface mapping is only concerned with external, internet-facing assets. While these are certainly a critical part of your attack surface, they’re not the whole picture. A complete map includes everything an attacker could potentially exploit, including internal networks, cloud configurations, APIs, and even third-party services. Attackers often find a foothold on an external asset and then pivot to move laterally within your internal environment. A truly effective security strategy requires a unified view of cyber risks across your entire digital ecosystem, not just the perimeter.
It’s easy to confuse attack surface mapping with vulnerability scanning, but they serve two distinct, sequential purposes. Mapping is about discovery—its primary goal is to identify and inventory every single asset connected to your organization, both known and unknown. You can’t protect what you don’t know you have. A vulnerability scan, on the other hand, is what you run after you have that complete inventory. It assesses those known assets for specific weaknesses. Think of it this way: mapping tells you what you have, while scanning tells you how it might be vulnerable, which is the first step toward effective vulnerability and threat prioritization.
Adopting an attack surface mapper is a significant step forward for any security program, but it’s smart to go in with your eyes open. Like any powerful new tool, implementation comes with a few common hurdles. Thinking through these potential challenges ahead of time will help you create a smoother rollout and get to the good stuff—like a clearer view of your exposures—much faster.
The main challenges usually fall into three buckets: handling the massive amount of new data, making the mapper work with your existing tools, and making sure your team has the bandwidth and knowledge to use it effectively. Let’s break down what to expect and how you can prepare your team for success. By anticipating these issues, you can turn potential roadblocks into manageable steps on your path to a more proactive security posture.
Once you switch on an attack surface mapper, you’ll suddenly have a firehose of data about your assets, connections, and potential vulnerabilities. This is exactly what you want, but it can feel overwhelming at first. The initial discovery phase can uncover hundreds or even thousands of previously unknown assets. The key isn’t to stop the flow, but to manage it intelligently. An effective platform will help you continuously identify and inventory all assets across your network without creating unmanageable noise. Look for a solution that doesn’t just dump raw data on you but helps you categorize, filter, and make sense of it from day one.
Your security program already has a set of tools you rely on, from SIEMs to ticketing systems. The last thing you need is another isolated platform that doesn’t communicate with the rest of your stack. An attack surface mapper should act as a central nervous system, not another data silo. True visibility comes from combining external scanning with deep network intelligence. The goal is to create a unified view of cyber risks by integrating the mapper’s findings with data from your other security solutions. This ensures that the insights you gain are enriched with context from across your environment, making them far more valuable and actionable for your team.
Many security teams are already stretched thin, and you might not have a dedicated attack surface analyst on staff. Some tools can be complex, requiring specialized skills to configure and interpret results, which can lead to incomplete coverage or missed threats. This is why usability and automation are so critical. The right solution should do the heavy lifting for you, using automation to reduce manual work and smart algorithms to prioritize exposure based on real-world threats. This empowers your existing team to focus on the most critical risks without needing years of specialized training, effectively bridging any resource or expertise gaps.
Once you have the right tools, building an effective attack surface mapping program comes down to process. It’s not a “set it and forget it” task but a continuous cycle of discovery, analysis, and action. By adopting a few key practices, you can turn your mapping efforts from a simple inventory check into a strategic security advantage. These habits help ensure your security posture stays strong as your digital environment evolves, keeping your teams focused on the threats that truly matter.
Your digital footprint is constantly changing as new devices, applications, and cloud services are added. That’s why attack surface mapping can’t be a one-off project. True total attack surface management requires continuous monitoring to keep up. Deploying automated discovery tools is the best way to maintain an accurate, up-to-date inventory of all your assets. This approach ensures that as your network expands, your security visibility expands with it. A continuous process helps you spot new and emerging risks in near real-time, so nothing gets overlooked and you can act before a potential threat becomes a real problem.
Discovering every asset is just the first step; knowing which ones to protect first is what counts. Not all vulnerabilities carry the same level of risk. Effective mapping provides detailed reports that help you focus on what’s most important. By combining asset discovery with threat intelligence, you can implement a system for vulnerability and threat prioritization that directs your team’s attention to the most critical issues. This allows you to address the exposures that pose the greatest danger to your business first, making your remediation efforts more efficient and impactful.
Security is a team sport. Attack surface mapping provides a clear, shared understanding of your organization’s weak points, which is valuable information for everyone from IT operations to DevOps. When all teams are working from the same data, it’s easier to align on priorities and coordinate remediation efforts. A unified view of your attack surface breaks down silos and encourages a culture of shared responsibility for security. This collaborative approach ensures that vulnerabilities are not just identified by the security team but are also quickly addressed by the teams who manage the assets.
The tools and technologies you use for attack surface mapping are critical to your success. However, the security landscape is always shifting, so it’s important to regularly evaluate your tech stack. Does your current solution provide the deep network visibility you need? Is it keeping up with new asset types and cloud environments? An effective attack surface management program is a continuous process, and your tools must support that. Periodically review your solutions to ensure they still meet your needs, integrate well with your other systems, and provide clear, actionable insights rather than just more data noise.
Choosing the right attack surface mapping solution is a big decision, and what works for one company might not be the right fit for yours. It’s about finding a tool that aligns with your specific security goals, operational capacity, and long-term vision. The market is full of options, each with its own strengths, so a clear framework for evaluation is your best asset. A great tool goes beyond simple discovery; it should integrate into your existing workflows and provide the context needed to turn data into decisive action. Before you start looking at demos, it’s helpful to step back and think through a few key areas that will guide your search.
By carefully evaluating your organization’s unique needs, you can filter out the noise and focus on solutions that address your most pressing challenges—whether that’s discovering shadow IT or securing cloud environments. Next, considering your budget and the resources you can dedicate—both financial and human—will help you find a tool that’s sustainable for your team. Finally, planning a realistic implementation timeline ensures a smooth rollout and quicker time-to-value. This thoughtful approach ensures you invest in a tool that provides real value from day one and scales with you as your digital footprint evolves, becoming a core part of your proactive security strategy.
The first step is to get a clear picture of what you actually need the tool to do. Every organization has a unique digital footprint and different security priorities. Are you primarily concerned with external-facing web applications, sprawling cloud infrastructure, or operational technology (OT) on your internal network? A solid attack surface mapping tool should give you complete visibility into all your exposed assets and potential entry points. Start by asking your team: What are our biggest blind spots right now? What types of assets are we struggling to track? Answering these questions will help you create a checklist of must-have features for your total attack surface management.
Next, it’s time for a realistic look at your budget and team capacity. While it’s tempting to go for the solution with the most features, it’s more important to choose one your team can actually use effectively. Consider both the initial cost and the long-term investment in time and training. Some platforms require significant expertise to manage, while others are designed for intuitive use. Automated asset discovery and risk prioritization can be a game-changer for smaller teams, freeing them up from manual work. Without effective vulnerability and threat prioritization, you risk drowning in data without a clear path forward. Find a balance between powerful capabilities and a user experience that fits your team’s workflow.
Finally, think about how the solution will fit into your world. Implementation is more than just installing software; it’s about integrating a new process into your security program. How quickly can the tool be deployed and start providing useful data? Does it integrate easily with your existing security stack, like your SIEM or ticketing systems? A successful rollout depends on a tool that supports a continuous strategy, not just a one-off scan. Look for a platform that helps you track and secure assets from day one. Your goal is to achieve ongoing visibility and maintain an up-to-date inventory, so choose a solution built for the long haul.
Isn’t attack surface mapping just another name for vulnerability scanning? That’s a common point of confusion, but they are two very different, yet related, steps. Think of it this way: attack surface mapping is the process of creating the blueprint of your entire digital house, identifying every single door and window. A vulnerability scan comes next; it’s the process of checking if each of those doors and windows is unlocked or has a weak frame. You can’t effectively scan for vulnerabilities until you have a complete and accurate map of everything you need to protect.
How often do I need to map my attack surface? The best way to think about this is not as a scheduled event, like a quarterly check-up, but as a continuous process. Your digital environment is always changing—new cloud services get added, marketing launches a temporary site, or a developer spins up a test server. An effective mapping process runs constantly in the background to reflect these changes in near real-time. A map that’s even a week old is already out of date and has blind spots.
My team is already swamped. Will this just create more work for us? I completely understand that concern. The goal of a good attack surface mapping tool is actually to reduce your team’s workload, not add to it. By automating the discovery of all your assets and using intelligence to prioritize the most critical risks, it filters out the noise. This allows your team to stop wasting time on manual inventory tasks and chasing low-impact alerts, and instead focus their energy on fixing the weaknesses that attackers are most likely to target.
What’s the difference between an attack surface map and a simple asset inventory? While they sound similar, the perspective is what makes them different. A traditional asset inventory is typically an internal list of the assets you already know about and manage. An attack surface map, however, is built from an attacker’s point of view. It shows you everything that’s visible and potentially accessible from the outside, including forgotten servers, third-party applications, and shadow IT that would never appear on your official inventory list. It’s the difference between what you think you own and what the world actually sees.
Does attack surface mapping only focus on my external, internet-facing systems? While mapping starts with your external perimeter, a truly comprehensive view doesn’t stop there. Attackers often use an exposed external asset as a jumping-off point to move deeper into your internal network. A complete map helps you understand these connections and potential attack paths. It provides a unified picture of your exposure, covering everything from your corporate website and cloud environments to the internal assets they connect to, giving you a much more holistic view of your actual risk.
