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What Is the Purpose of a Breach and Attack (BAS) Simulation Exercise?

Data breaches can cripple businesses, with both small and large-scale companies suffering millions in total damages. Just for a small business, the global average for a data breach totals nearly $4.0 million USD; for a publicly-traded company, this number is extraordinarily large, coming in at around $115 million USD. 

While companies can never 100% protect themselves against the possibility of a cyberattack occurring and their data being breached, there is a range of preventative measures that they can take. One of the most popular of these is using automatic Breach and Attack Simulation platforms, which will help find weaknesses in a company’s security systems.

What is BAS?

Breach and Attack Simulation is an automated process where a piece of software combs through all the different access points that attackers would use to break into a company’s systems. By going through the MITRE Attack Framework, which is one of the largest collections of hacking techniques that have previously been used against companies, BAS providers will ensure that there are no weak points in a company’s system.

Typically, after moving through tens of thousands of different access points that are connected to a system, the Breach and Attack Simulation will come across a range of access points that are not protected well enough. By then compiling a list of these different areas, cybersecurity experts will then get to work trying to patch and fix these potentially compromised access points.

As this process can be repeated frequently, cybersecurity offers can use this as an effective way of continually refining and improving a company’s defenses, ensuring that they’re much less likely to be targeted within an attack. 

Breach and Attack Simulation used to be run as a manual exercise, but the significant amounts of time and resources that moving to automatic systems has saved rapidly changed this industry. 

How Does BAS Work?

Ninety-five percent  of all cybersecurity breaches are directly related to human error, with simple oversights and easy-to-make mistakes leading to millions of dollars of damages every single year. As an automatic process, Breach and Attack Simulation platforms will attempt to locate, pinpoint, and undo any errors that are within your security configuration – whether they are caused by human error or not.

As machines do not accidentally skip over a point or forget to check a certain area of your attack surface, they are much more reliable. A BAS provider will comb through your entire system, checking all available areas for potential weaknesses. With this, you’re able to simulate the Red Team attack automatically, allowing your company to feed areas to improve directly to your security team.

Breach and Attack Simulation works in the background and won’t place strain on your system, simply testing the limit and identifying your weakest points.

Why Use BAS?

When moving to use automatic Breach and Attack Simulation tools, companies do so because this is now one of the most advanced methods of continually refining their cybersecurity network. Instead of the older tactic of using Red and Blue Teams to understand weak points in the network, this automatic system is significantly more efficient.

Typically, there are 3 main benefits of using a Breach and Simulation platform:

With benefits like these only just scratching the surface, it’s no wonder that automatic Breach and Attack Simulation platforms have become so popular over the past decade. 

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking to keep your business safe from cyberattacks, then one of the most effective methods of checking the overall health of your systems is by running Breach and Attack Simulation. These programs will test the limits of your system, moving through your whole attack surface in search for a potential entry point.

With this, your cybersecurity team can then spend more time actually creating defenses and bolstering your system and less time searching. With this, you’ll always be improving the defenses of your system, working on becoming a company that is completely impenetrable to attacks. 

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