Reducing Risk in Finance with Exposure Validation

The finance sector faces unique cybersecurity challenges stemming from its complex regulatory environment, the high value of the data it handles, and its critical role in the global economy. According to IBM’s 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report, financial firms incurred the second-highest breach costs across all industries—exceeded only by healthcare—with an average breach costing $6.08 million, 22% higher than the global average. Furthermore, 82% of organizations in this sector are projected to face a data breach within the next 12 months. As digital transformation continues to expand the attack surface, traditional vulnerability management approaches struggle to keep pace. Gartner’s 2024 Strategic Roadmap for Managing Threat Exposure underscores this, stating, “Without validation, what is today identified as an 'unmanageably large issue' will become an 'impossible task.'"

Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV) equips financial security teams with precise tools to assess vulnerabilities and focus on the most critical risks, significantly streamlining remediation efforts. By pinpointing only those exposures that require immediate attention, AEV minimizes the overall volume of identified threats. Through real-world attack simulations and advanced validation methodologies, these solutions empower teams to allocate resources efficiently, enhance regulatory compliance, and proactively mitigate breach risks.

This guide explores the mechanics of AEV technologies and provides actionable guidance for financial organizations on selecting and implementing the right solutions to reduce risk and enhance cybersecurity. Additionally, we will demonstrate how to run a Continuous Threat Exposure Management CTEM effectively) cycle, offering step-by-step examples to illustrate each phase of the process.

EXPOSURE MANAGEMENT and CTEM

Exposure Management is the foremost implementation of the Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) framework, empowering organizations to identify, validate, prioritize, and remediate security vulnerabilities. It surpasses traditional vulnerability management by addressing critical gaps, such as misconfigurations in security controls, weak security policies, software vulnerabilities, and exposed sensitive data—issues often overlooked by conventional practices.

The CTEM framework enhances this process by making it continuous, data-driven, and attacker-centric, emphasizing the feasibility of an exposure being exploited within an organization's unique IT environment. By incorporating advanced technologies such as Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) and Automated Penetration Testing, CTEM provides real-time validation and remediation of vulnerabilities. This proactive approach significantly reduces an organization’s risk exposure, with Gartner predicting that CTEM adoption could cut successful breaches by two-thirds by 2026.

Financial institutions, in particular, face expanding attack surfaces fueled by mobile banking, cloud adoption, and third-party dependencies. CTEM addresses these challenges by offering continuous visibility, real-time threat validation, and compliance support, enabling institutions to effectively prioritize high-risk vulnerabilities. Unlike traditional vulnerability management, CTEM filters out non-critical risks, improving efficiency and strengthening defenses against sophisticated cyber threats.

Adversarial ExposureValidation for Finance

Adversarial Exposure Validation empowers financial organizations to proactively assess and mitigate cyber risks by simulating real-world attack scenarios. Using the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of threat actors, AEV validates the exploitability of vulnerabilities and their potential impact. This approach automates the identification and validation of risks, reducing manual workloads while ensuring security controls are continuously tested.

Key AEV tools like Breach and Attack Simulation, Automated Penetration Testing, and Automated Red Teaming help financial organizations prioritize risks, allocate resources effectively, and strengthen defenses against advanced threats. With AEV, financial firms can enhance decision-making and stay ahead of evolving cyber risks.

Breach and Attack Simulation (BAS) for Finance

Breach and Attack Simulation tools are indispensable for finance-related organizations as they provide continuous validation of security controls by replicating realistic attack scenarios observed in the wild. Through simulating diverse attack vectors—such as malware and ransomware delivery, credential dumping (atomic attacks), advanced persistent threat (APT) scenarios, data exfiltration, web application and email infiltration, and vulnerability exploitation—BAS tools help organizations anticipate and mitigate potential threats effectively.

The financial sector faces a unique and expanding attack surface due to its reliance on complex digital ecosystems. To address these challenges, BAS solutions act as virtual cyber stress tests, evaluating the effectiveness of both preventive controls (e.g., NGFWs, WAFs, IPS) and detective controls (e.g., IDS, SIEM, EDR, XDR). By simulating the entire cyber kill chain, BAS tools validate critical risks, streamline the mobilization of remediation teams, enhance detection capabilities, and ensure adherence to regulatory frameworks such as PCI-DSS, DORA, and SOX.

At Picus Security, we understand that not all identified vulnerabilities represent immediate threats requiring urgent remediation. To address this, we leverage BAS to determine whether vulnerabilities can bypass existing security controls, assessing their actual exploitability and showcasing the genuine risks they pose. This approach allows security teams to prioritize effectively, avoiding unnecessary and disruptive patching efforts while focusing on what truly matters.

By offering continuous validation and actionable insights, advanced BAS tools enable financial organizations to remain resilient against evolving cyber threats. This proactive approach strengthens their security posture and reduces risk efficiently, ensuring long-term protection in a rapidly changing threat landscape.

Automated Penetration Testing for Finance

Automated Penetration Testing simulates real-world attacks to identify and exploit vulnerabilities within financial organizations, protecting sensitive financial data and customer information. This technology uncovers attack paths by chaining together seemingly isolated vulnerabilities, such as weak passwords, Kerberoastable accounts, and privilege escalation flaws, enabling teams to assess risks comprehensively.

Solutions like Picus Attack Path Validation (APV) mimic advanced adversary tactics to test internal networks with an "assumed breach" mindset. By identifying critical attack paths, validating security controls, and prioritizing remediation, Automated Penetration Testing helps financial organizations strengthen defenses, protect business-critical assets, and meet regulatory requirements like PCI DSS, SOX, and GDPR.

Automated Red Teaming for Finance

Automated Red Teaming continuously tests financial organizations' security postures by simulating real-world attack scenarios, mimicking advanced persistent threats like BlueNoroff and ransomware groups such as ALPHV/BlackCat. This technology assesses preventive and detective controls, assessing how well defenses respond under a full-scale simulated attack.

Key scenarios include phishing-based initial access, privilege escalation, lateral movement, and sensitive data exfiltration. Automated Red Teaming provides financial organizations with a realistic view of their security readiness, enabling them to strengthen defenses, improve detection capabilities, and ensure compliance with stringent financial sector regulations.

Adversarial Exposure Validation with Picus

The Picus Security Validation Platform is the industry leader in Adversarial Exposure Validation, empowering financial organizations to focus on and remediate the most critical risks. Unlike other solutions, Picus integrates seamlessly with existing vulnerability management systems and validates exposures using Breach and Attack Simulation, Automated Penetration Testing, and Automated Red Teaming.

Picus Attack Path Validation identifies and prioritizes the shortest, most exploitable attack paths, simulating real-world actions like credential harvesting, lateral movement, and privilege escalation. Picus Security Control Validation (SCV) offers unmatched threat coverage with 25,000+ attack actions, ~6,000 real-world threats, and 10,000+ vendor-specific mitigation steps. With ready-to-run templates tailored for finance, Picus ensures organizations stay ahead of evolving threats while improving operational efficiency and compliance.

Contact us today to request a free consultation and personalized demo of our Exposure Validation platform. Discover how we can help transform your cybersecurity posture and protect your critical assets.