Imagine steering a vessel through Arctic waters where 90% of iceberg mass lies hidden beneath the surface; your lookouts equipped only with telescopes and blind to the submerged threats.
This parallels today’s cybersecurity landscape: According to the Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2024, nearly 80% organizations have attack paths leading to critical assets, leaving exploitable vulnerabilities undetected until breaches emerge.*
Vasu Jakkal, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Security, frames the challenge like this: “Exposure management is critical for enabling teams to understand the posture of the organization—not just what’s visible, but what’s lurking in interconnected systems.” This obligation drove the creation of the eBook Navigating cyber risks with Microsoft Security Exposure Management, which covers exposure management and helps equip teams to anticipate adversarial tactics and neutralize risks before they escalate.
Advanced cyberthreat visibility beyond traditional approaches
Just as meteorologists use radar systems to detect developing weather patterns, modern security teams need proactive tools to spot cyberthreats before they disrupt operations. The eBook demonstrates how Microsoft Security Exposure Management enables this proactive approach, transforming security from a reactive function to a strategic advantage.
Traditional security approaches often limit themselves to responding to incidents after they’ve occurred. This reactive stance can leave organizations perpetually one step behind cyberattackers. In contrast, the approach offered by Microsoft includes comprehensive visibility that helps teams detect potential issues while they’re still developing, providing crucial time to adjust security controls or strengthen defenses.
Scenarios the eBook covers
The eBook invites security teams to explore six real-world scenarios. Each represents a unique challenge security teams face today, including ransomware mitigation and cloud misconfiguration. Through this guide, security team members can step into decision-making roles and learn how Microsoft Security Exposure Management can provide clarity in complex situations.
Scenarios include:
- How to become more secure
Foundational strategies for strengthening security posture
- Ransomware attack mitigation
Detecting and preventing encryption-based cyberattacks
- Cloud misconfiguration crisis
Addressing vulnerable cloud deployments before an incident occurs
- Internet of Things (IoT) and operational technology (OT) convergence risks
Securing the expanding digital ecosystem of connected devices
- Credential theft
Protecting identity and access management systems from phishing
- Business email compromise (BEC)
Preventing sophisticated social engineering cyberattacks
The integrated exposure management platform
Microsoft Security Exposure Management provides a comprehensive approach that uses proactive and reactive security measures. By identifying immediate risks while building sustainable security programs, organizations can stay ahead of evolving cyberthreats and strengthen their security posture over time. The platform enables teams to mobilize and address critical attack paths effectively through choke point remediation playbooks and cross-workload exposure dashboards. These capabilities help assess connected risks through automated attack path simulations, blast radius analysis, and purple team exercise integration—transforming how security teams identify and address potential cyberthreats before they materialize.
Exposure Management also helps organizations achieve comprehensive visibility across diverse environments, including hybrid infrastructure, multicloud deployments, and third-party SaaS applications. By repeatedly mapping cyberattack surfaces and visualizing critical paths, the platform enables security teams to identify vulnerabilities, prioritize remediation efforts, and mitigate risks effectively.
With this comprehensive approach, defenders can address risks across identity ecosystems, legacy systems, and cloud-native workloads. And capabilities like attack path management, choke point identification, and risk dashboards help organizations gain the ability to anticipate cyberthreats, prioritize risks, and strengthen their security posture proactively. This shift from reactive incident response to proactive risk management is essential in today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape.
At its core, Exposure Management functions like an advanced ship’s navigation system with three primary components:
- Attack surface management: Repeatedly maps your digital environment across hybrid infrastructure, identity ecosystems, and third-party applications
- Attack path analysis: Visualizes potential routes cyberattackers might take to reach your most valuable assets
- Unified exposure insights: Provides a consolidated view of risks to help prioritize remediation efforts
Together, these capabilities give security teams the equivalent of weather radar, sonar mapping, and navigational charts—a complete toolkit for safely guiding their organizations through dangerous waters.
Ready to gain more visibility into your security environment? Download the eBook Navigating cyber risks with Microsoft Security Exposure Management, and learn how to chart an even safer course for your organization today.
Learn more with Microsoft Security
To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.
*The data, insights, and events in this report represent July 2023 through June 2024 (Microsoft fiscal year 2024), unless otherwise noted. Please note that due to rounding, the percentages in some charts may not total 100%.