Cybersecurity is an arms race insofar as attackers are always evolving their tactics to stay ahead of security operations, and security operations evolving their protections to keep ahead of attackers. To outsmart these adversaries, security teams need to constantly challenge their own defenses. This is where adversarial exposure validation (AEV) comes into play—a proactive, automated approach that mimics real-world attacks to check security vulnerabilities before bad actors can exploit them.
An outside-in approach to security
Cybercriminals are always looking for workarounds to informational security defenses, so it is helpful to see your organization as an attacker would. By starting with an outside-in perspective, you can see your entire surface may contain thousands or more attack points such as admin interfaces and APIs. Instead of merely listing off potential vulnerabilities, adversarial exposure validation challenges your defenses in real time—just like a real hacker would.
By assuming an attacker’s perspective with AEV, security teams are empowered to:
- Identify exposures that point-in-time penetration tests might miss, which could lead your organization to be exposed for an extended period before remediation
- Oversee their full attack surface, including both known and unknown assets that could provide an entry point for bad actors
- Validate if vulnerabilities can truly be exploited in a real-world environment
- Filter out the noise of false positives and prioritize remediation based on genuine risk rather than just CVSS
This approach helps pivot from reactive remediation to proactive prevention, making adversarial exposure validation a game changer.
What is Adversarial Exposure Validation?
Adversarial exposure validation is an automated, continuous security testing methodology designed to simulate real-world attack scenarios. Unlike traditional assessments that simply flag vulnerabilities, this methodology actively challenges your defenses using tactics and techniques similar to those employed by highly-skilled cyber adversaries.
Aspects include, but are not limited to:
- Continuous testing: Instead of point-in-time pentests, AEV provides ongoing testing that keeps checking your defenses on your behalf.
- Risk-based prioritization: There are many exposures that are only theoretical, meaning they can’t be replicated in the real world. By validating which exposures are truly exploitable, AEV moves beyond CVSS scores and focuses on the tangible risk posed to your critical assets.
By testing your defenses with the tenacity of a hacker, adversarial exposure validation provides a realistic view of just how protected you are—one that highlights both immediate threats and potential gaps before they can be exploited.
Traditional security assessments are limited
Manual penetration testing has long been the backbone of a smart cybersecurity strategy. However, these methods come with critical limitations:
- Only a snapshot in time: Many conventional tests only assess the network at a single moment. Given the speed at which threats evolve, this snapshot can quickly become outdated.
- Irrelevant and overwhelming alerts: Scans can generate a deluge of vulnerability alerts, many of which represent only theoretical risks and not actual risks. Without proper context, teams may struggle to prioritize issues.
- Resource constraints and hurdles: Manual testing relies on skilled human resources and costly infrastructure, making it difficult to maintain the scan cadence needed to effectively counter modern threats.
In contrast, adversarial exposure validation is engineered for the modern threat landscape. Its continuous nature means that there’s no downtime for bad actors to slip in unnoticed. AEV exposes how vulnerabilities weaken your defenses in real time—providing actionable insights that go beyond just standard checklists.
Adversarial Exposure Validation gives security teams a helping hand
1. Realistic cyberattack simulations
The core of adversarial exposure validation lies in its ability to simulate attacks that are indistinguishable from those made by real cybercriminals. By leveraging a hacker’s playbook, these simulations see what your defenses look like under pressure.
- Emulating bad actor behavior: Tools used in AEV mimic the methods employed by cybercriminals.
- End-to-end full assessment: This isn’t about isolated vulnerability checks. AEV gives a comprehensive assessment, providing insight into the full attack surface.
- Filtering for actionable intelligence: Once a vulnerability is validated, AEV should offer precise, actionable recommendations to remediate the issue, ensuring your defense strategy evolves along with emerging threats.
2. Proactive risk management
One of the most significant advantages of adversarial exposure validation is its proactive approach. Instead of waiting for breaches to occur, this approach allows security teams to identify weaknesses before they can be exploited.
- Prioritization by exploitability: By testing not just the existence but the real threat level of vulnerabilities, it differentiates between issues that are serious threats and theoretical threats. This risk-based prioritization means you’ll know the order of how threats should be addressed.
- Constant vigilance: With AEV running continuously, there’s no need to wait for periodic assessments, or worse, real-world attacks. Your organization’s security posture is under constant scrutiny, reducing the window of opportunity for cybercriminals.
- Reduced alert fatigue: With precise, real-world validation, teams receive fewer false positives. This focused approach helps avoid overwhelming workloads, enabling quicker, more effective remediation.
3. Improved resilience and reduced downtime
Cybersecurity is high stakes and even a single breach can lead to some financial and reputational damage. Adversarial exposure validation improves cyber resilience by ensuring defenses are tough enough to withstand even the most sophisticated attacks.
- Early detection: Continuous attack simulation allows for early detection of vulnerabilities, reducing the time between identification and remediation. This rapid response alleviates the potential impact of a breach.
- Holistic defense strategy: This approach can also work alongside other security measures by providing an extra layer of validation. A layered security strategy means that if one line of defense is breached, others can act as a safety net to catch the threat.
- Adaptive security posture: Organizations that integrate adversarial exposure validation can evolve their security strategies dynamically. With timely insights into new and emerging threats, teams can adjust their defense measures proactively, staying ahead of potential attackers.
4. Increased scalability and efficiency
Scalability is a critical challenge for many organizations trying to maintain comprehensive security oversight. Traditional approaches can be labor and resource intensive, not to mention difficult to scale across vast networks.
- Automated processes: By automating attack simulations and validation processes, adversarial exposure validation dramatically increases the frequency of testing without the necessity for bloated human labor costs.
- Seamless integration: Modern platforms designed for AEV can operate in tandem with existing security tools, giving you a holistic security tech stack.
- Adaptability to any space: Whether you’re defending a traditional on-premises server network or a hybrid cloud infrastructure, AEV can be customized to operate within your specific security environment.
Implementing Adversarial Exposure Validation in your organization
For security teams looking to adopt adversarial exposure validation, the first step is to audit your existing security tools and posture. Identify any gaps in your traditional testing methods and consider how AEV can boost the efficacy of these tools. Look for platforms that offer:
- Comprehensive and up-to-date attack simulation capabilities
- Ease-of-use features like instantaneous deployment to allow seamless integration with current security environments
- Clear, prioritized remediation guidance that filters out no-impact threats
Once the right solution is in place, onboarding is critical. Particularly for teams wary of tech debt, assurance that automation can add the latest zero-day vulnerabilities and threat actor TTPs, can be the difference between buy-in and opting out.
How SHV leveraged Hadrian’s AEV functionalities
SHV Energy used AEV to get a full scope of their attack surface. Using Hadrian’s Adversarial Exposure Validation capabilities, SHV were able to achieve more overall visibility through end-to-end assessment.
Hadrian’s Orchestrator AI identified points of vulnerability just like a real hacker would. After validating the vulnerabilities based on the business impact, SHV received a filtered list of actionable remediation recommendations.
“It's not often that you find a tool that hones in on the risks that truly matter – the risks that could actually lead to a security incident,” Mahdi Abdulrazak, Group Information Security & Risk Officer for SHV Energy, said.
SHV was able to automate many of the time-consuming tasks that demanded their security professionals’ attention, so they could be more proactive about protecting their business.
The future of security testing: pre-empting adversaries
While point-in-time penetration tests may have their place in a balanced cybersecurity landscape, they don’t cover all your bases. By continuously simulating real-world attacks, this method ensures that your organization is not only aware of its vulnerabilities but prepared to tackle them head-on before they become a critical disruption.
Embracing adversarial exposure validation can transform your approach to cybersecurity—from reactive patching to proactive fortification. As attackers innovate, so must defenders.
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