Redefining Cybersecurity with Continuous Threat Exposure Management

Why Continuous Threat Exposure Management Matters

Continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) is a forward-thinking approach that addresses the evolving challenges of modern cybersecurity. Unlike traditional, reactive protocols that respond to threats after they emerge, CTEM is proactive, continuously identifying, evaluating, prioritizing, and mitigating threats across an organization’s digital infrastructure. With the rapid expansion of attack surfaces and the increasing complexity of threats, CTEM is becoming a critical pillar for organizations to achieve long-term cybersecurity resilience.

Companies today face unprecedented cybersecurity challenges. The rapid adoption of cloud technologies, expansion of remote work, and integration of third-party applications have drastically grown the attack surface. With cyberattacks becoming more sophisticated and frequent, conventional risk-based vulnerability management strategies struggle to keep pace.

The CTEM Solution

CTEM offers a comprehensive resolution to this growing challenge, enabling security teams to stay ahead of continually evolving threats. Through continuous detection and mitigation, CTEM ensures that you can address high-risk vulnerabilities before threat actors exploit them. This proactive approach not only protects critical assets but also builds organizational agility, compliance, and resilience in the face of an uncertain threat landscape.

  • Prioritize Critical Threats
  • Strengthen Regulatory Compliance
  • Build Organizational Agility
  • Cost Savings & Operational Efficiency

"By 2028, organizations integrating penetration testing into a CTEM program for key applications will be 35% less likely to face disruptive cyber breaches."

Gartner®

Gartner® is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Key Benefits of Adopting CTEM A proactive security framework that continuously improves over time

CTEM benefits your organization by identifying gaps and closing them before new threats arise.

  • Proactive Risk Management: CTEM allows organizations to identify and address vulnerabilities before they are targeted, ensuring a continually updated security posture.
  • Enhanced Attack Surface Visibility: By continuously monitoring both internal and external attack surfaces, CTEM provides a complete picture of an organization’s digital ecosystem, identifying hidden gaps previously undetected.
  • Improved Threat Detection and Prioritization: CTEM prioritizes vulnerabilities based on their potential impact, enabling teams to focus efforts where they are needed most.
  • Reduced Risk of Exploitation: By addressing critical vulnerabilities promptly, CTEM diminishes the likelihood of breaches and aligns resources to protect mission-critical assets.
  • Stronger Regulatory Compliance: A robust CTEM strategy helps organizations align with industry-specific regulations and maintain ongoing compliance.
  • Operational Efficiency: Continuous monitoring and streamlined tools reduce false positives and manual workload, ensuring security teams can focus on validated threats.
  • Diminished Blast Radius: Significantly minimize the damage of a breach by understanding the interdepencies of critical assets and testing your defenses against real world attack simulations (BAS).

Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) For Dummies,
NetSPI Special Edition

Exploring the
Five Pillars of Continuous Threat Exposure Management

Diagnose

Diagnose Phase

This first phase covers pillars 1, 2, and 3 of the CTEM Framework. This entails defining objectives, inventorying assets, and developing a method for prioritizing vulnerabilities based on technical severity and business impact. A key differentiator of the CTEM framework is collaboration between departments, ensuring alignment between cybersecurity goals and business priorities. 

  • Scoping
  • Discovery
  • Prioritization

“Who are the key players in our organization responsible for cybersecurity?”

Diagnose

Scoping Define Objectives

The process begins with defining objectives and inventorying all assets within the organization. This includes physical devices, networks, cloud platforms, and third-party applications. Collaborating across departments ensures alignment between cybersecurity goals and business priorities. 

  • Internal Collaboration: Have we enabled cross-departmental collaboration, including IT, legal, compliance, and operations teams?
  • Vendor Solutions: Are our vendor solutions well-integrated, or do we need unified systems to avoid operational silos?

Diagnose

Discovery Hunt for Vulnerabilities

Precise mapping of the attack surface is vital for informed decision-making. Discovery involves identifying all potential vulnerabilities, including those in public-facing assets, software dependencies, and third-party integrations. Techniques such as penetration testing and external attack surface monitoring play a pivotal role in this phase. 

  • Current Testing: How are we currently testing for vulnerabilities and threats?
  • Automated Tools: Do we have always-on monitoring tools to provide real-time visibility of vulnerabilities and risks?

Diagnose

Prioritization Strategically rank and focus on critical risks

Once vulnerabilities are identified, the next step is to rank them based on technical severity and business impact. This ensures that critical vulnerabilities posing the highest risk to organizational functions are addressed first, optimizing the use of security resources. 

  • Process for Priorities: Do we have a process for triaging and prioritizing vulnerabilities based on technical severity and business impact?
  • Automated Tools: Do we have always-on monitoring tools to provide real-time visibility of vulnerabilities and risks?

Aligned Objectives

Have we defined the cybersecurity objectives that are meaningful to each stakeholder?

Internal Collaboration

Have we enabled cross-departmental collaboration, including IT, legal, compliance, and operations teams?

Vendor Solutions

Are our vendor solutions and internal tools well-integrated, or do we need unified systems to avoid operational silos?

Testing Cadence

What is the cadence and comprehensiveness of our current testing methods?

Resource allocation

Does our security team have enough resources and automated tooling to support effective remediation efforts?

Action

Action Phase

This second phase covers pillars 4 & 5 of the CTEM Framework. This includes validating threats and taking decisive action against the most critical vulnerabilities defined in pillar 3. An unique aspect of the CTEM framework is continuously testing your defenses against Breach & Attack Simulations (BAS) or Red Team Exercises.

  • Validation
  • Mobilization

Action

Validation Take decisive action for continuous improvement.

Ensuring that remediation efforts are effective requires thorough testing. Tools like Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) as a Service help validate fixes by simulating real-world cyberattack scenarios, revealing any remaining gaps and verifying the success of mitigations.

  • Testing Frequently: How frequently are we testing, retesting, and validating our defenses against threats?
  • False Positives: How often do those tests surface the same vulnerabilities and are those vulnerabilities business-critical?

Action

Mobilization Rigorously test your defenses.

Security strategies should be actionable, adaptable, and based on continuous improvement. Mobilization involves implementing targeted changes, training staff on best practices, and maintaining open communication across all levels of the organization to foster a culture of cybersecurity awareness. 

  • Effective Remediation : Are there enough resources and tools to support effective remediation efforts?
  • Incident Response: Do we have an up-to-date Incident Response Plan (IRP)?

Solutions for Comprehensive Security

CTEM Solutions from NetSPI

To fully enable a CTEM strategy, security teams can leverage specific technologies and services designed to offer complete visibility and control. NetSPI’s solutions are purpose-built to align with CTEM by seamlessly integrating these advanced technologies into one cohesive platform. This unified approach empowers security leaders with comprehensive insights across their attack surface, enabling them to identify, prioritize, and remediate vulnerabilities efficiently. 

“By consolidating these solutions into a single platform, NetSPI enhances the depth, accuracy, and return on investment of cyber threat exposure management.”

CTEM vs VM

Vulnerability Management (VM)

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been the cornerstone of cybersecurity strategies, primarily focusing on identifying and patching known CVEs. A Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) program goes beyond traditional vulnerability management by providing three additional outcomes: 

Validated Exposure

CTEM emphasizes validating whether identified vulnerabilities and exposures can actually be exploited in your specific environment through methods like attack path modeling, breach and attack simulation (BAS), and Red Teaming.

Business Context

CTEM aligns security efforts with business objectives by prioritizing remediation based on the actual risk and impact to the organization’s critical assets and operations. This means focusing on exposures that matter most to the business rather than just theoretical risks.

Continuous Improvement

CTEM establishes an ongoing, iterative process for managing threat exposure. It involves continuous assessment, validation, prioritization, and mobilization, ensuring that defenses remain effective against evolving threats. This contrasts with the point-in-time approach of traditional vulnerability management. 

Non-patchable vulnerabilities

The effectiveness of VM is also diminishing due to an ever growing threat of Non-patchable vulnerabilities on attack surfaces. Non-patchable vulnerabilities include assets such as legacy 3rd Party integrations, mismanaged credentials, poor network architecture, and hardware / embedded systems within your office, data-center, or manufacturing facility. In addition to automated security testing, a mature CTEM program regularly conducts manual tests to determine the exploitability and impact of malicious activities on assets that traditional VM could consider patch-perfect.