A CTO's Primer on Breach & Attack Simulation: Part 2 - Common Challenges
Functional challenges
Breach and attack simulation (BAS) has emerged as a critical security validation methodology for organizations seeking to proactively identify and remediate vulnerabilities before malicious actors can exploit them. While BAS offers significant advantages over traditional security testing approaches, its implementation faces distinct challenges when applied to on-premise environments versus cloud infrastructures. This report examines these unique challenges and their implications for effective security validation.
On-premises environments
High capital and operational costs
On-premise environments demand substantial upfront investments in hardware, software and physical infrastructure. These high initial costs can significantly impact budgets, limiting the ability to implement comprehensive BAS solutions. Additionally, the ongoing operational expenses for power, cooling and maintenance strain security budgets even further. This financial burden often restricts organizations from adopting advanced BAS tools that deliver robust security validation.
Limited scalability and resource constraints
On-premise infrastructures typically have fixed resource capacities, making it difficult to scale BAS testing efficiently. During periods of high demand, organizations may face resource shortages, leading to operational disruptions or incomplete security validation. Security testing resources often compete with other critical business operations, which can limit the scope and effectiveness of BAS implementations.
Complex maintenance requirements
Managing on-premise systems involves continuous maintenance, hardware upgrades, software updates and security patches. This complexity adds an extra layer of burden for security teams that need to balance system upkeep with ongoing security validation activities. Coordinating updates across shared resources can be challenging and may result in downtime, disrupting critical security testing operations.
Connectivity and deployment issues
Organizations frequently encounter connectivity challenges when deploying BAS tools in on-premise environments. Technical issues may arise when trying to deploy applications or retrieve data from these systems, disrupting the continuous security validation process that BAS solutions aim to provide.
Security control segmentation
In on-premise setups, security controls are often fragmented across various systems and networks, which complicates comprehensive testing. Many BAS tools focus on internal network and endpoint controls, potentially overlooking vulnerabilities in external-facing systems. This segmentation can create blind spots in security validation efforts, leaving critical areas exposed.
Challenges in cloud environments
Dynamic and complex nature
Cloud environments are defined by their dynamic infrastructure, which continuously evolves as organizations scale resources up or down. This constant change creates a significant challenge for BAS tools, which must adapt to an ever-shifting attack surface. Security validation in these environments requires ongoing adjustments to account for new services, configurations and data migrations.
Shared responsibility model confusion
There is often uncertainty about the division of responsibilities between cloud customers and providers when it comes to security. This ambiguity complicates the implementation of BAS tools, as organizations must clearly outline which security controls they need to validate themselves. Without this clarity, critical security gaps may go unnoticed, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation.
Different operational paradigms
Cloud environments operate under entirely different paradigms compared to traditional on-premises setups. BAS tools designed for on-premise solutions may struggle to address cloud-specific vulnerabilities or attack vectors effectively. To ensure thorough security validation, BAS approaches must be tailored to the unique operational models of cloud ecosystems.
API security challenges
APIs are the backbone of cloud services, creating a critical attack surface that BAS tools must address. If attackers gain the necessary authentication or permissions to interact with APIs, they could potentially compromise the entire cloud infrastructure. BAS solutions must be equipped to test API security comprehensively, adding an extra layer of complexity to the simulation process.
Dependency on internet connectivity
Cloud-based BAS solutions rely heavily on stable internet connectivity. Interruptions can disrupt access to real-time data and hinder the functionality of security testing systems. This reliance on internet connectivity introduces a potential point of failure that does not exist in fully on-premise BAS deployments.
Challenges in hybrid environments
Complex security posture management
Hybrid cloud environments, which blend on-premises infrastructure with private and public cloud services, create a highly complex security landscape that is difficult to test effectively. Research shows that a large majority of enterprises utilize a hybrid strategy, often involving nearly five clouds on average. This complexity significantly increases the challenges of implementing robust BAS tools across diverse environments.
Inconsistent security policies
Maintaining consistent security policies across hybrid environments is a common struggle for organizations. These inconsistencies can lead to security gaps that are hard to detect with traditional testing methods. BAS tools must address this issue by simulating attacks that span both on-premise and cloud environments, uncovering vulnerabilities caused by inconsistent policies.
Integration between environments
Validating security in hybrid environments requires thorough testing of integration points between on-premise and cloud systems. These integration points often serve as critical vulnerabilities, enabling attackers to move laterally between environments. BAS tools need the capability to simulate lateral movement techniques to ensure comprehensive security validation.
Managing multiple cloud providers
With a majority of enterprises adopting multi-cloud strategies, organizations face the daunting task of managing security across multiple cloud providers, each with its own security models and interfaces. BAS tools must adapt to these varying platforms while delivering consistent and reliable security validation.
Technical and implementation challenges
Attacker perspective integration
One critical element often missing in many security solutions is an understanding of the attacker's perspective. Without this insight, organizations struggle to anticipate attacks and remain stuck in a reactive security posture. BAS tools must incorporate threat intelligence and attack path analysis to provide a holistic view of potential attack scenarios.
Balancing realism with safety
BAS tools need to carefully balance realistic attack simulations with the safety of production environments. Simulations that are too aggressive can disrupt business operations, while overly conservative ones may miss critical vulnerabilities. Achieving this balance requires advanced controls and robust monitoring capabilities.
Actionable remediation guidance
To be effective, BAS tools must deliver clear and actionable remediation guidance based on identified vulnerabilities. The complexity of modern IT environments makes it challenging to translate simulation results into specific, practical steps that security teams can quickly and efficiently implement.
Different BAS implementation models
BAS solutions typically fall into three main categories—agent-based, traffic-based, and cloud-based— each with its own set of implementation challenges. Organizations must carefully assess which model aligns best with their security needs and infrastructure, adding further complexity to the adoption process.