How DASM Enables Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)

Introduction

In 2025, cybersecurity budgets exceed $200 billion globally—yet breaches are more frequent and damaging than ever. The problem isn’t under-investment; it’s misalignment. Most organizations measure risk by vulnerabilities, not by what those vulnerabilities truly expose: data.

Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) is reshaping that model. Instead of relying on point-in-time scans, CTEM programs create an ongoing cycle of discovery, prioritization, and mobilization. But to make it work, you need visibility into the one domain traditional vulnerability tools miss—the data attack surface.

That’s where Data Attack Surface Management (DASM) becomes foundational. It delivers the data-layer telemetry CTEM needs to prioritize risk, enforce protection, and automate mitigation in real time.

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Understanding Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)

CTEM is a continuous, risk-based approach to exposure management. Rather than listing vulnerabilities, it measures how exploitable each exposure is. This is based on real-world context such as user behavior, data sensitivity, and attack pathways.

A mature CTEM program operates through five continuous phases:

1. Scoping – Define which assets and data sets matter most.
   
2. Discovery – Identify active exposures across infrastructure, identity, and data.
   
3. Prioritization – Rank exposures using automated, data-aware risk scoring and threat intelligence.
   
4. Validation – Test compensating controls or exploit paths to confirm impact.
   
5. Mobilization – Automate mitigation and feed insights back into detection systems.
   

Without visibility into the data layer, these phases remain incomplete. DASM fills that gap.

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The Missing Layer: Data in CTEM

Traditional exposure management tools see only half the picture. They track endpoints, network configurations, and software versions, but not how users interact with sensitive data.

Yet breaches nearly always end there:

• 18% of attacks in 2024 exploited vulnerabilities first disclosed in 2013 or earlier.
  
• 40% originated from vulnerabilities discovered in 2020 or earlier.
  
• The majority targeted unstructured data, not infrastructure.
  

By incorporating DASM into CTEM, CISOs gain continuous visibility into who is accessing what data, where, and when. This provides critical insight into whether that behavior represents legitimate use or early indicators of compromise.

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How DASM Powers CTEM

Data Attack Surface Management extends CTEM from endpoints to the storage layer, providing real-time telemetry on data exposure, access behavior, and user risk. It enables:

1. Continuous Discovery

DASM automatically maps and classifies unstructured data assets across hybrid environments. This expands CTEM’s visibility from network and application layers to include every data repository that attackers could target.

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2. Risk-Aligned Prioritization

DASM correlates user activity, host posture, and data sensitivity to feed CTEM’s automated, data-aware risk scoring. Instead of treating all vulnerabilities equally, it prioritizes those tied to valuable or regulated data, which focuses remediation on what matters most.

This context-aware approach allows CISOs to make decisions based on business impact, not just technical severity.

3. Automated Mitigation and Zero-Trust Enforcement

Through integrations with Superna’s Zero Trust API and SOAR/SIEM platforms such as Google SecOPS and CrowdStrike Fusion SOAR, DASM and Data Security  Edition enables real-time control actions:

• Block access to data based on a data risk assessment of hosts and user
• Reduce data overexposure risks to sensitive data based on PII classifciation 
• Isolate compromised users.
• Trigger immutable snapshots to leverage as recovery points for data restoration.
  

These capabilities transform CTEM from a monitoring framework into an active defense system, where exposures are detected and neutralized within seconds.

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Why DASM Is Central to CTEM Maturity

A mature CTEM security model depends on complete attack surface coverage. DASM ensures that:

• Users, hosts, and data are continuously mapped and correlated.
  
• Risk scores include contextual data sensitivity and regulatory requirements.
  
• Threat intelligence is enriched with real-time data activity signals.
  
• Remediation aligns to business priorities, not static CVE lists.
  

By integrating DASM into CTEM, organizations evolve from reactive patching to proactive, automated exposure management. Security teams achieve focused patch remediation that increases data security posture.

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Key Business Outcomes for CISOs

Implementing DASM-enabled CTEM delivers measurable operational and strategic benefits:

• Full-Spectrum Visibility: Unified view of risk across data, users, and hosts.
• Business Contact Risk Assessment: Not all vulnerabilities are equal. DASM considers who’s accessing what, how often, and how sensitive that data is — giving you real-time risk scores that help prioritize what to remediate now, and what can wait to reduce your attack surface and your data security posture.
• Reduced Mean Time to Mitigate (MTTM): Automation replaces manual prioritization without business context.
• Content Integrity Assurance: Not all attacks are obvious. Data Attack Surface Manager detects data encryption and subtle manipulations that alter meaning while appearing normal. By validating coherence and integrity, it provides a new signal of trust for critical business data.
• Continuous Exposure Mapping: Visualize how users, hosts, and sensitive files are accessed — across your entire storage environment. Get the context your scanners can’t provide and uncover risks your stack can’t see
• Vulnerability Scanner Enhancements: Transforms your Vulnerability Scanner into a Data Attack Surface Aware tool.  DASM publishes attack surface data into Scanners tools to leverage Data Attack surface reporting & trending,  and accelerated scanning schedules..
  

For CISOs, this translates to a security program that moves as fast as the business—and the threat landscape.

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Conclusion

Continuous Threat Exposure Management is only as effective as the visibility that feeds it. Without DASM, CTEM lacks awareness of how data is truly exposed and exploited.

By integrating Data Attack Surface Management into CTEM frameworks, CISOs gain a live, data-centric view of enterprise risk, while enabling automated, outcome-driven defense that reduces exposure continuously.

Superna’s Data Attack Surface Management, Data Security Edition, Cyber Storage Incident Response, and AirGap solutions provide a complete solution to a Cyber Incident lifecycle (Before, during and after). 

Next step: Assess your CTEM maturity. If your current exposure program stops at endpoints, extend it to where the real value (and risk) lives: your data.