For those tasked with defending their data centers from security threats, they need to know more than just what those threats are. They need to understand how those threats work, and, more importantly, the kinds of weaknesses and paths to exploitation they follow.

With that in mind, adaptive security firm Illumio has just announced a new solution called the Attack Surface Assessment Program (ASAP) which works to identify those parts of an IT infrastructure that are most at risk.

Illumio ASAP’s main focus is in addressing the security gap that exists inside both on-premises data centers and the cloud due to the use of network segmentation technologies. The solution is built for customers who want to take a proactive stance against cybersecurity risks that are associated with the lateral spread of attacks. ASAP offers application and network-level visibility into networks that allows security teams to identify unknown traffic crossing between development and production environments.

Illumio ASAP works by scanning an entire IT infrastructure and highlighting the servers and communication flows that hackers are most likely to target as they search for high-value data to steal. Illumio’s assessment report allows organizations to come up with a plan to eliminate attack surfaces inside their data centers by using adaptive segmentation to harden security.

“Once an attacker is inside a data center or cloud, their ‘dwell time’ — the period they can scan a compromised network for high-value data before being detected — can be upwards of 100-200 days,” said Doug Cahill, an analyst with ESG. “Technologies like the Illumio Attack Surface Assessment Program can give organizations additional visibility that can help them restrict attackers’ ability to conduct network reconnaissance or eliminate infrastructure vulnerabilities before they can ever be exploited.”

Illumio ASAP was the brainchild of Nathaniel Gleicher, Head of Cybersecurity Strategy for Illumio, and former Director for Cybersecurity Policy for the National Security Council at the White House.

“Because network segmentation tools tend to be coarse grained and incredibly complex to deploy at scale, the interior geography of most data centers is still fairly open,” Gleicher said. “This large attack surface favors attackers, because once they get in they can quickly move to high-value targets, and be extremely difficult to identify and contain. Illumio ASAP is designed to rebalance the playing field between defenders and attackers.”

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