An Introduction to Extended Security Posture Management

Cyber threats are rising, with a new hacking attack being launched at a business every 38 seconds. While security defenses are becoming more complex, the threats challenge them, leading to an increasingly difficult job for security experts. 

The attack surface of an online business is rapidly expanding, with every employee, new software, and integration symbolizing a potential new avenue of attack entry for a hacker. With constant employee churn, updating protocols, and shifting software platforms, it’s no wonder that your company’s attack surface is hard to keep track of.

While specific tactics, like purple teaming, launching breach and attack simulations, and red-teaming allow for security developments to be made, the disparate set of results from each of these can lead to confusion. Due to this, recent cybersecurity technology has turned towards comprehensive security posture management – a system that incorporates all known defense tactics into one holistic approach. 

In this article, we’ll be discussing the power of a comprehensive security posture management tool, demonstrating why this SaaS system is the go-to option for businesses around the globe.

1. What is Extended Security Posture Management?

Based on an extensive understanding of the MITRE Attack Framework, an extended security posture management software will deploy onto your company’s network, then challenge, manage, and validate your entire security network. Think of an XSPM as a tool that combines all the functionalities of leading security defense testing systems into one comprehensive platform.

Alongside launching a full range of different simulation tests simultaneously, XSPM software will be able to compile reports about potential threats, ranking them and then guiding security experts towards patching them before they become a more significant problem.

Due to the granular evaluation of the security network from this great perspective, a comprehensive security posture management tool will allow businesses to understand their security on a much deeper level.

2. What Are The Benefits Of XPSM?

A comprehensive security posture management system is the most advanced form of digital defense, covering the whole attack surface and providing complex solutions to cyber threats. 

This platform is most commonly used due to its excellence in finding and neutralizing threats. Some benefits you can expect with this form of software are:

• Find gaps in security – These programs will run simultaneously, finding any threats to your organization’s security.
• Holistic Tool System – Ensures cohesion across all of your tools, making everything work together to prevent breaches.
• Guidance – Provides information about how to patch issues that arise from the simulation penetration tests.
• Updated – As these tools are connected to the internet and continuously run, they are frequently updated with the latest information and attack structures, allowing you to test new hacking attacks on your network as soon as they’re discovered.

These are occasional benefits that your business can obtain once working with a comprehensive extended security posture management system.

3. What Can Extended Security Posture Management Do?

As a comprehensive security solution, an extended security posture management platform can provide a range of different functions that keep your system safe. Each of these processes is automatic, ensuring that you keep your business safe 24/7/365. 

Leading extended security posture management software offers: 

• Continuous and in-depth validation
• Prioritization scale of vulnerabilities
• Risk scoring
• Automated purple teaming
• Integration with other systems

Let’s break these down further.

a. Continuous and In-depth Validation

Security posture management spans across the entire attack kill chain. By employing strategies like Breach and Attack Simulations, Automatic Red-Teaming, and Attack Surface Management, this holistic system offers an effective way of covering all of your security bases.

While running all of these different validation processes against your system, you’ll be able to raise the baseline of your businesses’ security, ensuring that you’re protected from all angles.

Additionally, extended security posture management software can cover thousands of attacks at once by incorporating the full range of tactics displayed on the MITRE Attack Framework, which is the largest database of hacking tactics and security breach styles online.

This comprehensive validation system ensures that your company is always prepared, as it will constantly be put to the test.

The results of these tests will reveal weaknesses, which will allow your security team to take action then. 

b. Prioritization Scale of Vulnerabilities

The extended security posture management software will begin to uncover vulnerabilities within your security system through the in-depth web of validation tactics. Whether those be data breaches, open ports, compromised passwords, or already-present malware, they’ll be flagged instantly.

Considering the enormous quantity of simultaneously simulated attacks that are launched against your system, the platform will start finding a large number of vulnerabilities. To better help your security team address these issues, a security posture management software will then order them based on the threat they pose.

More severe threats will be pushed to the top of the queue, ensuring that your security team gets around to patching the vulnerability as soon as possible. This efficient ranking system will ensure that the most dangerous threats to your business’s cybersecurity are dealt with before anything else. 

c. Risk Scoring

By pulling data from the different simulations that the extended security posture management software is using, it will actively score your cyber defenses. Instead of just hoping that your reasons are improving over time, this quantitative value will allow you to track your security improvements throughout the year effectively.

This risk scoring also allows you to rationalize your security spending, seeing which areas of your defenses need improvement and more budget while also seeing which are performing well. This score also allows you to see how your team is performing, ensuring that they’re effectively working towards a more comprehensive security system for your business.

d. Automated Purple Teaming

Purple Teaming, formed from the idea of the Red and Blue teams working together and sharing their attack and defense tactics, is a popular simulation exercise to run in security teams. Not only does this find vulnerabilities, but it allows your teams to think of innovative solutions and patch problems as soon as they are encountered.

However, like all human-ran security exercises, Purple Teaming manually often leads to much slower progress, making this process less efficient than it could be. The solution is automating the process, with Automatic Purple Teaming becoming a part of regular posture management.

The SaaS platform will automatically create, launch, and give feedback about custom attacks, moving through the MITRE Attack Framework to find any potential gaps in your company’s security. 

As the automation is significantly faster than other forms of Purple Teaming, you’ll be able to make threat hunting an efficient process, unearthing solutions that will dramatically improve your organization’s cyber health.

e. Integration with Other Systems

One of the commonly overlooked benefits of integrating a comprehensive security posture management system into your defenses is that they can integrate with a range of strategies. For example, these programs can integrate with EDR/XDR and SIEM systems, correlating detection, attack events, and altering security experts with ease.

No matter what vulnerability management systems you already rely on, these systems will help improve the system. Additionally, the reporting features will ensure that any potential threats found by any simulation are instantly reported, alongside recommended steps to remediate the problem.

4. Final Thoughts on Extended Security Posture Management

Incorporating an extended security posture management program into your businesses’ digital defense systems is one of the most thorough ways of defending yourself online. Covering the whole attack surface and launching automated simulation attacks to reveal threats, this comprehensive system helps organizations improve their security.

With ongoing reporting and prioritization, this system also guides your security teams, helping them fix the most pressing threats before they are exposed. 

Due to the interlinking system that pulls upon leading security systems, like breach and attack simulations and purple testing, you’ll be able to rest assured that your organization’s security is in good hands with this innovative solution.