How to Reduce Your Attack Surface With Secure Password Management

Getting hold of a set of working login credentials is the simplest way for a cybercriminal to breach any network, which is why employee passwords are so highly sought-after by threat actors.

Thanks to cloud computing, smart devices, mobility and the rise of remote work, organizations have more people and devices connecting to their networks, from more locations, than ever before. This has greatly broadened organizations’ potential attack surfaces and made it even more important for enterprises to secure user passwords.

Let’s examine what an attack surface is, how securing attack surfaces relates to password management and how securing your organization’s passwords can help minimize attack surfaces. 

What Is an Attack Surface? 

An attack surface is simply the total number of potential entry points into a system or network where a threat actor can gain unauthorized access. By minimizing your organization’s attack surface, you minimize the number of potential routes for cybercriminals to breach your network.

An attack surface could be: 

• Digital, meaning applications, ports, code and websites. 
• Physical. Servers, routers and end-user devices such as laptops, mobile phones and hard drives are all part of your physical attack surface. 
• Social engineering, which refers to threat actors compromising your team members, often through phishing.

It’s important to note that an attack vector is different from an attack surface. An attack vector is the means by which a cybercriminal attacks your network or system, such as through phishing, taking advantage of vulnerabilities in unpatched software or compromising a password.

Defining Your Attack Surface Area

You can’t secure what you don’t know you have! Conducting an attack surface analysis is critical to protect your organization from cyber attacks:

• Identify vulnerabilities. In addition to your IT infrastructure and end-user devices, like laptops, vulnerabilities can be found within application code, user and device passwords and even open ports.
• Determine user types. Every user, both human and machine, should have only the minimum level of network access they need to do their jobs, and no more. 
• Conduct a risk assessment. Questions to ask include which users, applications and endpoints pose the greatest risk of compromise? How can things go wrong, and where could they go wrong? 
• Secure your reporting. Audit all security controls protecting your data, such as checksums, encryption, data integrity and operational controls. 

5 Effective Ways to Minimize Your Attack Surface 

1. Implement zero trust

Zero trust is a cybersecurity framework that eliminates implicit trust, requires all human users and devices to be continuously and explicitly validated and strictly limits access to network systems and data. 

Zero trust reduces potential attack surfaces by limiting network access levels, segmenting and microsegmenting networks and strictly controlling the number of privileged users.

2. Segment networks 

Network segmentation utilizes tools and strategies, such as firewalls and security policies, to silo your network into smaller zones. In the event of a breach, this hampers the ability of threat actors to move laterally within your system. 

3. Promptly install patches and updates 

Software and operating system updates frequently contain important security patches for known vulnerabilities. For example, the Equifax breach happened because a threat actor took advantage of a vulnerability in an unpatched version of Adobe Struts. Make sure to install updates as soon as possible after they’re released. 

4. Tightly manage user permissions

Role-based access control (RBAC) and least-privilege access reduce organizations’ digital attack surface by restricting users’ ability to access network resources based on their individual positions and responsibilities. In addition to mitigating insider threats, this ensures that threat actors don’t end up with the “keys to the kingdom” should a user be compromised.

5. Deploy an enterprise password manager 

 The majority of successful data breaches and ransomware attacks can be traced back to compromised passwords, which makes an enterprise password manager your first line of defense against cyber attacks. 

How Keeper Helps with Digital Attack Surface Management

With numerous solutions available on the market, selecting a robust enterprise password manager can seem daunting. Keeper’s password management solutions provide organizations the total visibility and control over employee password practices that they need to successfully implement a zero-trust security model and minimize their attack surface.

Using Keeper, IT administrators can monitor and control password use across the organization; enforce security policies and controls, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA), RBAC and least-privilege access; and monitor the dark web for passwords that have been compromised in other organizations’ data breaches.

Start your 14-day free trial and start reducing your attack surface today.