Today CloudCodes team of cloud security experts are live with solutions to achieve endpoint breach prevention by reducing attack surfaces. They are going to assist readers with the use of security controls and applications, comprising of an operating system, computing assets, web apps, etc. It is easy for adversaries and attackers to exploit the surface area. Therefore, it is important to reduce attack platform or surface area, eliminating the chances of exploit and breach.
Does Zero-Day Vulnerabilities Still Exist?
Till the year 2011, there was a major concentration on zero-day vulnerabilities. But, after that time period, the modus operandi of attackers have increased. In today’s date, some of the users are still using zero-days, but it is more economical, easier, and profitable for adversaries to concentrate on weaponizing newly exposed vulnerabilities. This simply means that ‘when vulnerabilities get exposed and the service provider comes out with a patch, the capability of exploitation through vulnerabilities, weaponize it to perform cyber attacks.
Before the year 2017, critical vulnerabilities were caused in the year 2010. These vulnerabilities began increasing with the change in time and growth in technology. Again in the year 2017, a threat named as WannaCry Ransomware attack had become fear for enterprises worldwide. It is being found that every year, there are around 60K to 70K vulnerabilities disclosed, out of which 30 to 40% of them are critical. The critical severity means the power of a vulnerability to exploit things remotely, to get privilege escalation in actual, and the possibility of executing remote malicious code. All these actions lead to the going of machine control in the wrong hands. When these hands gain access to the target’s system they can implant command, change the existing OS, fetch all business data, and perform all activities that might cause harm to the intruder or his / her business.
What To Do To Reduce Surface Attacks? Endpoint Breach Prevention
Now it’s time to open up your eyes and think that how can successfully achieve endpoint breach prevention. Remember one thing that you don’t have to be dependent on prevention technologies because they might get deactivated or not have signatures. These technical machines are based on the machine learning concept, which does not align with another attack vector. Therefore, the best way for endpoint breach prevention is to reduce the attack surface. For this, you must implement the following four things:
- You must be having a complete asset inventory of entire machines. You must be known from all the premises servers, laptops, instances used for cloud computing, print servers, IoT devices, etc. If you are unknown from any of your assets, it could be the reason for a sudden data breach occurrence in your premises.
- You have to add the power of vulnerability management on all the inventory assets. For this, determine possible vulnerabilities, including remotely exploiting vulnerabilities either they are high or low. Keep one thing in mind that vulnerabilities on the device itself lead to the birth of severe situations in the future.
- Another major point for endpoint breach prevention is to prioritize business operations. It should include ‘what to remediate and at what time’. For this, it is compulsory to deeply understand the organizational hierarchy. You should be known from the server dependency system, established in your workstation.
- Last comes the threat intelligence system! It is required to determine whether the vulnerabilities are getting exploited, and also reducing the power of targeting & rectifying the vulnerabilities. This system should be smart enough to automatically determine and troubleshoot threat if occurred.
Also, Deal With Digital Exhaust
The term ‘digital exhaust’ refers to the content, which is left behind when we are browsing for data via web browsers. The role of this concept in endpoint breach prevention by reducing the attack surface is major. It is so because data exhaust comprises of remote scanning records, user login records, user deleted log records, outbound command, local user profiles created, etc. All these contents are used by adversaries to stealth the data from the targeted platform. Therefore, it’s time to focus on data exhaust as well! For this, you have to :
- Record the telemetry from all workstation’s PCs
- Track the activities done on all PCs via one screen
- Detect the adversarial work, tactics, and procedures
Several technologies are available in the marketplace, which is able to provide endpoint breach prevention with all required security measures. Few of them are enlisted below:
- Keep a track record of activities performed on network endpoints
- Endpoint detection and response capability
- App to detect enterprise network traffic
- Immediate incident response system
- File integrity monitoring system
Get All-in-One Solution For Your Problem
It seems as if different-different programs are to be installed on a machine to achieve endpoint breach prevention on the enterprise network. But, it is not at all true! A lot of vendors are available in the market that renders a consolidated platform with all technologies required to reduce cyber threats. One such vendor is CloudCodes, which renders solutions like identity management, access control, real-time visibility, Single Sign-on, and more, all on one platform. Interested users can test the demo version of the solution and if found suitable, go for its purchased version. This will strengthen you with all possible measures needed to accomplish prevention against endpoint breach in today’s date.