Qualys develops EASM capabilities for Cloud Platform

Qualys has announced it is adding External Attack Surface Management (EASM) capabilities to the Qualys Cloud Platform.

Integrated into CyberSecurity Asset Management 2.0, the new component adds the external attacker view to identify previously unknown internet-facing assets for a complete and accurate picture of the enterprise attack surface.

Digital transformation, increased adoption of cloud and internet of things (IoT), a growing remote workforce, and a technology talent shortage have led to an exponential rise in organisations attack surface, Qualys says.

This expansion is designed to make it harder for security teams to correlate externally visible and internally managed assets, and govern compromises that occur because of undiscovered, unmanaged, or poorly managed IT assets.

To combat this, organisations need a new approach to view vulnerable assets from the outside in and execute like an attacker to quickly identify areas of risk, according to Qualys.

Michelle Abraham, research director Security and Trust at IDC, says, "Organisations must proactively manage their cyber defences, which includes finding and addressing vulnerabilities, to reduce cyber risk.

"Qualys unique approach to EASM is integrating the internal and external asset data from CyberSecurity Attack Management with its Vulnerability Management, Detection and Response (VMDR) solution into a single view. As a result, organisations can better identify undiscovered assets and immediately access and mitigate the cyber risk within the same workflow."

Mike Orosz, vice president information and product security at Vertiv, says, "Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management provides invaluable attack surface insights from an external attackers point of view. This view allows us to proactively augment our vulnerability management program by discovering risks presented by previously unknown internet-facing devices.

"Additionally, the automated workflows enable us to prioritise security engineering actions that will reduce cyber risk and rapidly improve our company's security."

Qualys Cyber Security Asset Management 2.0 with EASM enables organisations to continuously monitor and reduce the entire enterprise attack surface including internal and internet-facing assets and discover previously unidentified exposures.

It also helps synchronise with CMDBs, detect security gaps like unauthorised or end-of-support software, open ports, remotely exploitable vulnerabilities, digital certificate issues, unsanctioned apps and domains, and mitigate risk by taking appropriate actions.

Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management 2.0 with EASM Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management with EASM allows Security and IT teams to:

Uncover gaps across the entire attack surface: From a single cloud platform, the solution continuously discovers and accurately classifies internal and external internet-facing assets. It automatically finds your subsidiaries, performs horizontal and vertical domain and subdomain enumeration, correlates WHOIS and DNS records and attributes assets to your organisation.

Get a reliable, accurate view aligning security and IT ops: Augment uncertain, outdated data in your CMDB with CyberSecurity Asset Management. Teams can capture unmanaged assets and gain a single source of truth for internet-facing assets, along with location and context, through automatic synchronisation with enterprise CMDBs and vulnerability management to streamline ongoing attack surface monitoring and response.

Rapidly remediate risk with native VMDR 2.0 integration: CyberSecurity Asset Management 2.0 and Qualys VMDR 2.0 improve the cybersecurity program posture with TruRisk scoring and automated and one-click orchestration of vulnerability and remediation workflows to convert unmanaged, internet-facing assets into fully managed and patched assets.

Sumedh Thakar, president and CEO of Qualys, says, "Achieving full asset visibility remains one of cybersecurity's most elusive goals. CyberSecurity Asset Management 2.0 solves this by providing both the holistic, external attacker-level and internal view of the attack surface to address the increased threat landscape comprehensively.

"Taking protection a step further, we've natively integrated the solution with Qualys VMDR so organisations can prioritise vulnerabilities and asset groups based on risk and proactively remediate to quickly reduce exposure."

Availability Qualys CyberSecurity Asset Management 2.0 with EASM is currently in preview and available to existing customers. It will be generally available in mid-September.