Page 214 - Cyber Defense eMagazine September 2025

Case-in-Point - The Launchpad Role of ‘Low-Priority’ Assets

Contemporary breach investigations consistently highlight a pattern. Attackers have shifted from direct
confrontation with hardened perimeters towards exploiting under-regarded auxiliary systems. In
numerous publicised incidents:

• Orphaned cloud servers, excluded from standard patching cadences, have been paired with
compromised credentials to facilitate lateral traversal,
• Unsecured test environments, overlooked after project close, have served as vectors for data
extraction neither foreseen nor guarded by production controls,
• Legacy VPN gateways, retained for contingency purposes, have allowed multi-stage ransomware
infiltration.

Such episodes are seldom isolated missteps. Successful attackers routinely exploit a chain of seemingly
inconsequential exposures, demonstrating that security is only as robust as its least valued component.

Strategic Priorities for Security Leadership

For those entrusted with the enterprise’s digital stewardship, the mandate has evolved to reflect the
growing complexity of the threat landscape. Organizations must begin by exposing the unseen through
exhaustive asset inventories, recognizing that any unmonitored asset poses a potential risk. This should
be coupled with a shift from periodic audits to continuous discovery, ensuring real-time, integrated
identification of assets and exposures. Prioritization must be aligned with business imperatives—
technical severity alone is insufficient; systems deemed non-critical by IT may be essential to operations
elsewhere. To enhance responsiveness, enterprises must institutionalize AI and automation, not just for
detection, but for escalation management, root cause diagnosis, and autonomous remediation. Shared
accountability must also be fostered, with DevOps, IT, and business stakeholders jointly responsible for
securing both visible and shadow assets. Finally, it is essential to demonstrate regulatory diligence by
aligning Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) with evolving compliance frameworks and
delivering actionable insights to leadership and governance bodies.

Epilogue

Cybercriminals excel at uncovering fragile seams left unattended. The professional obligation of
defenders is thus to erase any distinction between ‘low-priority’ and ‘high-priority’—to recognise that
every asset is consequential, and that exposure is dynamic rather than static. We must commit to
vigilance in those once-overlooked domains, for only then shall we deny the adversary their clandestine
passage.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – September 2025 Edition 214
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