External attack surface management (EASM) helps organizations identify and manage risks associated with Internet-facing assets and systems. The goal is to uncover threats that are difficult to detect, such as shadow IT systems, so you can better understand your organization’s true external attack surface.

EASM processes, tools, and managed services can help detect threats across servers, public cloud services, credentials, and third-party partners. Ideally, your EASM program should help you identify cloud misconfigurations, software vulnerabilities, exposed credentials, shadow IT, and various other security weaknesses that threat actors can exploit.