November 22, 2024 at 08:43AM
Microsoft has launched its Security Exposure Management offering, adding continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) to its security portfolio. This proactive approach aims to reduce breaches and improve vulnerability detection. It integrates with Microsoft 365 licenses, supports third-party tools, and provides a comprehensive view of organizational security postures.
### Meeting Takeaways
1. **Introduction of Security Exposure Management**:
– Microsoft announced its new Security Exposure Management offering during the Microsoft Ignite conference, adding continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) to its security portfolio.
– This offering is designed to detect and mitigate threats in a proactive manner.
2. **Significance of CTEM**:
– Analysts, including Tyler Shields from the Enterprise Strategy Group, view CTEM as the evolution of vulnerability management, focusing on asset discovery, threat analysis, and vulnerability discovery.
– Gartner predicts that organizations adopting CTEM will experience significantly reduced breaches by 2026.
3. **Key Features of the Offering**:
– The tool provides unified views of attack surfaces, enabling security teams to understand organizational posture and potential attack paths from an attacker’s perspective.
– It utilizes Microsoft’s exposure graph APIs for a more comprehensive threat evaluation.
4. **Integration with Third-Party Tools**:
– Microsoft plans to allow integration with competing third-party tools like Qualys, Rapid7, and Tenable, although there will be charges for accessing this external data.
– Public preview versions of these connectors are expected to be generally available next quarter.
5. **Components of Microsoft Security Exposure Management**:
– The offering includes three primary tools:
– **Attack Surface Management**: Continuous views of the organization’s attack surface and identification of critical assets.
– **Attack Path Analysis**: Visualization and prioritization of high-risk attack paths targeting critical assets.
– **Unified Exposure Insights**: Insights on threat exposure to prioritize risks and align remediation with business needs.
6. **Market Position and Competitive Landscape**:
– Microsoft’s entry into exposure management is expected to shift competition dynamics among existing providers like Cisco, CrowdStrike, and others.
– The integration of existing Microsoft functionalities could provide a cost-effective solution for customers, making the offering attractive.
7. **Conclusion**:
– While the extent of customer adoption remains to be seen, the combination of Microsoft’s existing capabilities and the new exposure management offering is likely to prompt many organizations to evaluate their exposure management strategies.