Attack Surface
Management
Know what your organisation exposes to the internet. You cannot secure assets you do not know exist. Most organisations have a larger external footprint than they realise - forgotten subdomains, exposed admin panels, misconfigured cloud services, stale DNS records, leaked credentials and third-party systems that remain online long after they should have been removed or secured.
- External asset discovery, including shadow IT and forgotten infrastructure
- Point-in-time discovery or ongoing exposure monitoring
- Subdomain, DNS and certificate exposure mapping
- Exposed services, open ports and admin interface detection
- Cloud and SaaS exposure across AWS, Azure and Google Cloud
- Credential and data leak review linked to your domains
- Risk-rated findings prioritised by exploitability and business impact
- Alerting on meaningful changes to your external footprint
You cannot secure assets you don't know exist.
Attack Surface Management helps you identify, monitor and reduce the systems your organisation exposes to the internet. RTCS maps your external environment, finds unknown and unmanaged assets, identifies high-risk exposure, and provides practical remediation steps your team can act on.
What It Is
Penetration Test
Looks deeply at a defined scope at a point in time. Proves exploitability and impact against a known target.
Attack Surface Management
Looks broadly across your external footprint and keeps watching for change. Finds the unknowns - the assets that aren't in any inventory.
The goal is simple - find exposure before attackers do.
Internet-facing systems change constantly.
New services are deployed. Cloud resources are created. Vendors are onboarded. Staff register SaaS platforms. Development environments are published temporarily and forgotten. DNS records remain active after projects end. These issues often sit outside normal vulnerability management because they are not always known, owned or documented.
Common external risks
Forgotten subdomains still pointing to live systems
Exposed admin portals and remote access services
Cloud storage or services with weak configuration
Dev and staging environments exposed to the internet
Old applications with unsupported software
Unmanaged third-party hosted systems
Leaked credentials linked to corporate email
Expired or misconfigured certificates
Open ports and services that should not be public
Shadow IT outside approved security processes
External asset discovery across your full footprint.
RTCS performs external asset discovery and exposure review across your public-facing environment. The output is a clear picture of what is exposed, what matters, and what should be fixed first - not a long list of noise.
Capabilities
External Asset Discovery
Identify known and unknown assets using public records, DNS, certificate transparency, OSINT, internet scan data and cloud indicators - a practical inventory focused on assets that increase business risk.
Exposure Monitoring
Point-in-time or ongoing monitoring. Ongoing helps catch new exposure as it appears - subdomains, services, certs, ports and login portals - useful for active cloud environments and frequent deployments.
Cloud & SaaS Exposure
Externally visible exposure across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Microsoft 365, identity platforms, hosted applications and third-party systems. Public storage, management interfaces, misconfigurations and orphaned ownership.
Credential & Data Leak Review
Credential and data exposure linked to your corporate domains, email addresses and known breach sources - with practical remediation guidance for resets, MFA, conditional access and monitoring.
Not every finding has the same level of risk.
Attack Surface Management can generate a lot of data. RTCS prioritises findings based on exploitability, exposure, business impact, asset sensitivity and likely attacker interest - so your team focuses on the issues that matter rather than chasing raw counts.
Priority categories
How It Compares
vs Vulnerability Scanning
Vulnerability scanning checks known assets for technical weaknesses. ASM asks the broader question - what does the organisation expose, including assets security teams may not know about? The two work best together.
vs Penetration Testing
Penetration testing provides deeper manual testing against a defined scope. ASM provides broader external visibility and ongoing change detection. ASM shows what exists. Pentesting shows what can be done with it.
Scope to Monitor
A practical, staged engagement that builds an external asset inventory, prioritises real risk, and keeps watching as your footprint changes.
Define domains, brands, IP ranges, cloud environments, subsidiaries, third-party systems and exclusions for the engagement.
Identify internet-facing assets using public data, OSINT, DNS, certificate transparency, cloud indicators and internet scan data.
Remove obvious noise, validate findings where possible, and group assets by owner, function, technology and exposure type.
Review exposed services, login portals, cloud assets, certificates, leaked credentials, outdated systems and other risks.
Rank findings based on real-world risk, exploitability and business impact - not raw counts.
Deliver a clear report with asset inventory, exposure register, risk-rated findings and remediation actions.
Where ongoing monitoring is in scope, alert on meaningful changes to your external footprint.
Who It's For
Who This Service Is For
- No clear inventory of internet-facing assets
- Multiple domains, brands or business units
- Use Azure, AWS or Google Cloud
- Frequent application deployments
- Rely on third-party hosted systems
- Need to identify shadow IT
- Want to reduce external exposure
- Need better visibility before a pentest
- Need continuous monitoring of external change
- Want a practical external risk register
Typical Outputs
- External asset inventory
- Subdomain & DNS exposure review
- IP and exposed service mapping
- Cloud and SaaS exposure findings
- Certificate exposure review
- Credential and data leak findings
- Shadow IT observations
- Risk-rated exposure register
- Prioritised remediation actions
- Executive summary & technical evidence
Attackers look for the easiest way in. Unknown systems, exposed services and leaked credentials can create unnecessary risk before your team is aware they exist. Talk to us about an Attack Surface Management assessment, external asset discovery engagement or ongoing exposure monitoring.
Common Questions
What is Attack Surface Management?
Attack Surface Management is the process of discovering, reviewing and monitoring the assets your organisation exposes to the internet. This includes domains, subdomains, IP addresses, cloud services, SaaS platforms, exposed services, login portals, certificates and leaked credentials.
How is Attack Surface Management different from a penetration test?
A penetration test deeply assesses a defined scope at a point in time. Attack Surface Management provides broader visibility across your external footprint and can monitor for change over time. Both are useful, but they solve different problems.
How is Attack Surface Management different from vulnerability scanning?
Vulnerability scanning checks known systems for known weaknesses. Attack Surface Management helps identify what systems exist in the first place, including unknown, unmanaged or forgotten internet-facing assets.
Can you find shadow IT?
Yes. We use external discovery methods to identify assets that may not be recorded in internal inventories, including forgotten subdomains, cloud-hosted systems, SaaS platforms, third-party hosted applications and unmanaged infrastructure.
Can you monitor for new exposure?
Yes. RTCS can provide ongoing monitoring to identify meaningful changes to your external footprint, such as new subdomains, exposed services, certificate changes, new login portals and other internet-facing changes.
Do you check for leaked credentials?
Yes. Where included in scope, we review credential and data exposure linked to your organisation's domains and email addresses. Findings are handled carefully and reported with practical remediation steps.
What frameworks does this support?
Attack Surface Management can support vulnerability management, cyber risk management, ISO 27001, NIST Cybersecurity Framework, Essential Eight uplift and broader security governance activities by improving visibility of external assets and exposure.
Not sure what you need?
Use the enquiry form or email [email protected] with a brief summary. Include your organisation, the service area if known, and any timing requirements.