Exposure Surface Management (ESM) aims to proactively identify, assess, and mitigate vulnerabilities across an organization’s digital assets, including those external to the traditional IT infrastructure, to reduce the risk of cyberattacks.
Here’s a breakdown of what ESM looks like: 
- Comprehensive Asset Inventory: ESM starts with a thorough inventory of all assets, both internal and external, including cloud services, IoT devices, third-party integrations, and even shadow IT.
- Continuous Discovery: This inventory is not static; it requires continuous discovery processes, including automated tools and manual verification, to keep pace with the evolving environment.
- Attack Surface Mapping: ESM uses data to create a map of the organization’s attack surface, highlighting potential vulnerabilities and weaknesses.
- Vulnerability Assessment and Prioritization: ESM identifies and assesses vulnerabilities, prioritizing those with the highest potential impact and likelihood of exploitation.
- Risk-Based Prioritization: It uses a risk-based approach, considering factors like severity, how easy or difficult it is to exploit, real-world threat context, and potential business impact to focus resources on the most critical exposures.
- Remediation and Mitigation: ESM focuses on developing and implementing strategies to address identified risks, including targeted remediation efforts and proactive measures like simulated attacks.
- Continuous Monitoring: ESM involves continuous monitoring of the organization’s external attack surface to identify potential vulnerabilities and validate exposure to digital risk.
- Collaboration and Communication: ESM requires collaboration among business units, security teams, IT teams, and leadership, fostering a data-driven approach to security investment.
- Outcome-Based Metrics: ESM uses outcome-based metrics to measure the effectiveness of efforts to reduce overall risk posture.
