This lesson connects vulnerability management to real-world attacker behavior by explaining attack surface mapping, recon techniques (passive and active), tools, initial access vectors, and practical defender controls. It provides workflow steps to discover, prioritize, and remediate exposures so teams can convert vulnerability noise into prioritized action.
Attack Surface Mapping and Initial Access — The No-Chill Recon Opening Section Imagine you are a burglar with a PhD in reconnaissance. You dont try the front door first; you survey the property, find the unlocked basement window, and note which neighbor has the friendly dog. Thats attack surfa...
Why this matters (TL;DR) Finding exposure early prevents emergent, high-impact access paths. Contextual prioritization : A critical CVE on a machine with no internet-facing presence is less urgent than a medium CVE on an internet-exposed service. Blue team value : Mapping shows where to place...
Main Content 1) What's an attack surface, actually? Attack surface = all reachable paths an attacker could use to manipulate or read system behavior or data. That includes network services, exposed APIs, web apps, user accounts, third-party integrations, employee devices, and humans. Thin...
2) A step-by-step attack surface mapping workflow (ordered) Scope definition : Identify assets in-scope (domains, IP ranges, cloud accounts, org-owned apps). Passive discovery : WHOIS, certificate transparency logs, public DNS, Shodan, GitHub, job posts. Active discovery : Port scans, service...
3) Passive vs Active Recon — quick compare Technique Pros Cons Passive (OSINT, CT logs, Shodan) Low risk, stealthy, legal-friendly May miss internal assets, less up-to-date Active (scans, brute-forcing) High fidelity, finds live services Noise, potential legal/ethical issues, ea...
4) Common tools and sample commands DNS discovery: Amass, Sublist3r IP/service scanning: Nmap, Masscan Web enumeration: Gobuster, Dirb, Burp Public exposure: Shodan, Censys Cloud: AWS CLI + IAM enumeration scripts, GCP asset inventory Sample nmap scan (safe, targeted): nmap -sS -p- -T...
5) Initial access vectors — where attackers actually get in Exposed services : RDP, SMB, VPNs, misconfigured database endpoints. Web application flaws : auth bypass, SSRF, SQLi, vulnerable SSO integrations. Credentials : leaked passwords, password spraying, credential stuffing. Phishing &am...
6) From discovery to foothold: a typical attacker playbook Map services and owners Probe for auth and misconfigurations Try credential stuffing or password spray where login forms exist Exploit reachable CVEs (with proof-of-concept) or chain misconfigurations Drop a web shell or persisten...
Practical defender checklist (actionable) Integrate asset discovery into CI/CD and inventory systems. Correlate external attack surface findings with internal vulnerability trackers. Harden internet-exposed services first (RDP, VPN, SSH, DBs). Enforce MFA and strong password policies (and m...
Closing Section — Key takeaways and a slightly unnerving insight Attack surface mapping is the bridge between static vulnerability lists and the dynamic ways attackers actually get inside. Prioritization works better when you enrich vuln data with exposure context: that high-severity bug on an ...
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