Attack Surface Reduction Guide: Protect Your Cloud From Every Angle

TL;DR:

Reducing the attack surface means making it harder for cybercriminals to get into your systems. It does this by removing things they don’t need, closing security gaps and keeping a close eye on your cloud environment 24/7. Right now, companies are under attack more than ever—an average of 1,925 times per week, which is 47% higher than 2024. But while the numbers might seem scary, there’s good news too: with the right approach, you can make your business a much less attractive target for hackers.

Key Takeaways

• Attack surface reduction minimizes entry points attackers can use to compromise your systems
• Cloud security incidents have affected 80% of companies in the past year
• Technologies like EASM, CSPM, and Zero Trust help discover and Secure.com exposed assets
• Cloud environments need continuous monitoring because they change constantly
• Secure.com's Digital Security Teammates automate asset discovery and threat response to reduce your attack surface

Introduction

80% of companies experienced cloud security incidents in the past year, with 21% leading to bad actors gaining unauthorized access to sensitive data. Every app you run, every port you open, and every cloud service you spin up creates a new doorway for attackers. That's your attack surface—and it's growing faster than most security teams can track.

Attack surface reduction flips the script. Instead of waiting for attackers to find your weak spots, you eliminate them first. This guide shows you exactly how to build a reduction strategy for cloud environments, which technologies actually work, and how to tackle the biggest challenges head-on.

What is an Attack Surface?

Your attack surface is every possible way an attacker can get into your systems. Think of it like your house—every door, window, and vent is a potential entry point. In the digital world, these entry points include servers, applications, APIs, cloud storage, network ports, and even employee credentials.

Attack surfaces fall into three categories:

• Digital assets: Everything connected to the internet—web apps, databases, cloud services, APIs, network ports, and code repositories. By 2025, 200 zettabytes of data will be stored in the cloud (IDC, 2021), which means more data to protect and more potential targets for attackers.
• Physical assets: Hardware like servers, laptops, mobile devices, USB drives, and IoT gadgets. When someone steals a laptop with unencrypted data or plugs an infected USB into your network, that's a physical attack surface breach.
• Human elements: People who have access to your systems—employees, contractors, third-party vendors, and their credentials. Phishing was the most prevalent cloud security breach in 2024, affecting 73% of organizations. Social engineering attacks target this part of your attack surface because humans are often the easiest way in.

Each category needs different protection methods. But they all share one thing: the bigger your attack surface, the harder it is to defend.

Why is Attack Surface Reduction Important

Shrinking your attack surface directly reduces your risk. The average cost of a data breach reached $4.35 million globally (IBM Cost of Data Breach Report 2024), and that number climbs higher when healthcare or finance data gets compromised. Attack surface reduction helps you avoid becoming another statistic.

Here's what happens when you reduce your attack surface:

• You block attacks before they start: Hackers can't exploit assets that don't exist. When you remove unnecessary services, close unused ports, and decommission old systems, you cut off attack paths before threat actors find them.
• You make compliance easier: Regulations like GDPR, SOC 2, and HIPAA require you to know what data you have and where it lives. A smaller attack surface means fewer assets to audit, monitor, and Secure.com—which makes compliance less painful and more affordable.
• Your security team gets more effective: 43% of cybersecurity professionals cite a lack of qualified staff as the biggest challenge when protecting cloud workload. When your team has fewer assets to watch, they can focus on the systems that actually matter instead of drowning in alerts.
• You save money: Every asset costs money to maintain, patch, and secure. Removing unnecessary infrastructure reduces your cloud bills, security tool costs, and the time your team spends on low-value tasks.
• Breaches become harder to spread: Network segmentation and access controls stop attackers from moving sideways through your systems. Even if one part gets compromised, the damage stays contained instead of spreading to your entire environment.

How to Create an Attack Surface Reduction Strategy for Cloud Environment

Building a reduction strategy for cloud environments requires a methodical approach. Cloud infrastructure changes constantly—new services spin up, old ones get forgotten, and configurations drift over time. Here's how to stay ahead.

Step 1: Discover everything in your environment

You can't protect what you don't know about. Start by finding every asset—domains, subdomains, IP addresses, cloud storage buckets, APIs, containers, and shadow IT that your teams deployed without approval. 78% of companies use two or more cloud providers in 2025, which makes discovery harder but more critical.

Tools like EASM platforms scan your external attack surface the way an attacker would, discovering assets you might have forgotten. Cloud connectors pull in data from AWS, Azure, and GCP to build a complete inventory.

Step 2: Remove what you don't need

Once you know what you have, get rid of unnecessary assets. Decommission old test environments, delete unused cloud storage, shut down services that no one uses anymore, and revoke access for ex-employees. Every asset you eliminate is one less thing attackers can target.

Step 3: Fix misconfigurations and vulnerabilities

Organizations using public clouds faced security incidents in 2024 that included an average of 43 misconfigurations per account. Scan your environment for common problems like publicly accessible S3 buckets, overly permissive IAM roles, weak passwords, outdated software, and open ports that don't need to be open.

Patch management should be automated. Vulnerabilities in third-party libraries can sit hidden in your code for months, creating entry points you don't know about.

Step 4: Implement access controls

Apply the principle of least privilege—give users only the access they need to do their jobs, nothing more. Use multi-factor authentication on everything, especially admin accounts. Set up role-based access controls and review permissions regularly to catch privilege creep.

Step 5: Segment your network

Network segmentation isolates different parts of your infrastructure so a breach in one area can't spread everywhere. Separate production from development, customer data from internal systems, and high-value assets from general infrastructure. Microsegmentation takes this further by creating barriers between individual workloads.

Step 6: Monitor continuously

Cloud environments don't stay static. New vulnerabilities emerge, configurations change, and shadow IT appears overnight. Set up continuous monitoring that alerts you when new assets appear, configurations drift, or suspicious activity starts. The average time to detect a cloud breach is still 277 days (IBM Cost of Data Breach Report)—you can't afford to wait that long.

Step 7: Automate where possible

Manual processes can't keep up with cloud-scale infrastructure. Automate asset discovery, vulnerability scanning, patch deployment, and compliance checks. Automation reduces human error and frees your team to focus on strategic work instead of repetitive tasks.

What are the Technologies Used for Attack Surface Reduction?

Different tools tackle different parts of your attack surface. Here's what actually works.

• External Attack Surface Management (EASM): Views your internet-facing assets the way an attacker would, looking for weaknesses to exploit. Finds assets like domains and subdomains, IP addresses, cloud services, and shadow IT. Reveals vulnerabilities such as misconfigurations, unpatched vulnerabilities, and exposed credentials.
• Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM): Ensures cloud setups comply with best practices for configuration. Uses APIs to spot open storage buckets, overly permissive IAM policies, and lack of encryption. Provides visibility across multiple clouds to spot misconfigurations that could lead to breaches.
• Zero Trust: No device or user is trusted by default. Every access request is verified, identities are authenticated, least privilege is applied, and continuous monitoring ensures attacks are minimized.
• Vulnerability Scanners: Scan applications, systems, and infrastructure to find unpatched software, weak passwords, SQL injection vulnerabilities, and other issues before attackers exploit them.
• Network Segmentation: Divides your architecture into compartments. Firewalls, VLANs, and microsegmentation prevent lateral movement even if one area is breached.
• Identity and Access Management (IAM): Controls who has access to what. Features like SSO, MFA, role-based access, automated deprovisioning, and abnormal login detection prevent unauthorized access.
• Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): Monitors devices for suspicious activity, isolates infected systems, and prevents malware from spreading.
• Security Information and Event Management (SIEM): Collects and analyzes data from multiple sources, identifies risks using AI/ML, and correlates events to reveal attack patterns.

What are the Challenges in Attack Surface Reduction?

Even with the right tools, organizations run into obstacles. Here's what makes attack surface reduction difficult—and how to handle it.

• Rapid infrastructure changes: Developers add new services, acquisitions bring unknown systems, temporary environments become permanent. 54% of companies adopt hybrid cloud setups. Fix: Implement continuous asset discovery and enforce infrastructure-as-code for change tracking.
• Skill gaps: Many professionals lack cloud security skills. Fix: Automate processes, invest in training, and use managed security services for support.
• Alert fatigue: Thousands of daily alerts overwhelm teams, many being false positives. Fix: Use AI-powered prioritization and automation to focus on high-risk issues.
• Integration problems: Over 50 security tools are often siloed, creating blind spots. Fix: Use unified platforms with API integrations and standardized data formats.
• Resource constraints: Teams must prioritize critical vulnerabilities due to limited budgets. Fix: Apply risk-based prioritization, fixing high-exposure vulnerabilities first.
• Shadow IT: Employees use unapproved tools, creating unmonitored risks. Fix: EASM discovers shadow IT and make approved tools easy to use.

How Can Secure.com Help in Attack Surface Reduction

Secure.com's Digital Security Teammates provide automated security capabilities that augment teams without extra headcount:

• Automated asset discovery: Continuously profiles cloud, SaaS, endpoint, and identity assets.
• AI-powered risk prioritization: Focuses on the threats that matter most.
• Real-time continuous monitoring: Alerts for new assets, configuration drifts, or suspicious activity.
• Automated remediation with human oversight: Handles routine fixes while requiring human approval for high-impact actions.
• Unified visibility: Across public cloud environments and SaaS.
• Continuous compliance automation: Generates evidence year-round, reducing audit prep time.

Digital Security Teammates act as an extension of your team, handling repetitive tasks while analysts focus on critical issues.

FAQs

Conclusion

Reducing the attack surface is ongoing. Identify what you have, remove what you don’t need, and monitor the rest.

Small teams can manage this with the right tools. Cyber-attacks are rising—on average 1,925 per week per organization. You can't stop them all, but reducing entry points makes attacks harder.

Focus on a few key areas: know your assets, patch critical vulnerabilities first, automate routine tasks, and let your team handle strategic issues.

Ready to see your complete attack surface? Start your free trial with Secure.com and discover what's exposed before attackers do.