Today, to proactively protect your organization against advanced threats you have a few options. That might sound like a good thing, but it really means security leaders are faced with the daunting task of choosing between a myriad of tools and approaches to achieve the most comprehensive level of protection. Some focus on testing security controls against the latest threat vectors to identify and fix gaps, while others target their attack surface—assets, users, and configurations—to patch vulnerabilities before attackers strike. Common approaches include automated red teaming, pen testing, breach and attack simulation (BAS), attack surface management (ASM), and automated security control assessment (ASCA).
But should organizations pick just one, or is a combination more effective? In this blog, we’ll explore why pairing BAS with a proactive threat exposure management (PTEM) solution like the Nagomi Platform can give organizations stronger protection.
What is BAS and how does it work?
Breach and attack simulation (BAS) is an offensive testing method used to assess the effectiveness of security controls by simulating real-world attacks. BAS tools identify coverage gaps and misconfigurations by running simulated threats against an organization’s defenses. These tools help security teams understand how a specific threat impacts their security posture and provide a library of advanced threats for validation. By integrating threat intelligence, BAS tools can even create custom attacks tailored to specific industries or business needs. They give actionable insights for prioritizing remediation efforts, though they’re typically limited to validating security controls along the attack path, potentially missing gaps outside it.
What is PTEM and how does it work?
Proactive Threat Exposure Management (PTEM) platforms identify vulnerabilities by continuously analyzing the configurations and security policies of deployed security controls. They provide real-time visibility into an organization’s threat exposure, allowing security teams to respond quickly to evolving threats. By ingesting data from all assets and security controls, PTEM platforms offer a comprehensive overview of security risks and deliver more effective remediation recommendations that align with business context. Using read-only APIs, PTEM tools gain unprecedented visibility across the entire network, ensuring thorough threat monitoring.
Key differences between BAS and PTEM solutions
BAS and PTEM tools both aim to identify gaps and misconfigurations in your security controls, but they approach it differently.
Breach and attack simulation (BAS) tools simulate real-world attacks using a library of pre-defined scenarios to test security controls. They identify vulnerabilities and misconfigurations by mimicking attacker behavior. However, BAS is often limited by the starting point (attacker) and target (victim), meaning it may miss broader network context. It’s effective for validating controls, but it can be time-consuming, costly, and may not account for changes in your environment during simulations.
On the other hand, Proactive Threat Exposure Management (PTEM) platforms analyze the entire attack surface continuously. By evaluating assets, security controls, and configurations, PTEM offers a holistic “inside-out” approach. This lets security teams understand their architecture’s vulnerabilities and determine how advanced threats might impact the organization in real time, all without running specific simulations. PTEM platforms also align findings with compliance frameworks and threat intelligence for a comprehensive view.
In short, while both solutions help identify security gaps, BAS focuses on simulated attack paths, and PTEM takes a broader, ongoing approach to evaluating the whole security posture. Using both could give you a more complete picture of your security resilience.
| Feature | BAS Tools | PTEM Platforms |
| Methodology | Simulate real-world attacks to test detections and response efficacy. | Assess and compare existing configurations and policies against organizational baselines and compliance frameworks and threat landscape. |
| Primary Objective | Run simulated attacks to identify misconfigurations and coverage gaps. | Analyze your existing security control configurations and policies to identify exposures and ensure protection against advanced threats. |
| Scope | Attacks typically run between pre-defined start and stop points, helping identify gaps between those points. Can be often point-in-time and reactive, making them limited in scope based on how the tool is deployed. | Network/ organization wide as all deployed assets and security controls are mapped and their policies and configurations are analyzed to get a security baseline. Can be ongoing and proactive as configurations can continuously change, making it wider in scope compared to exposure validation tools. |
| Best Used To Determine | How security controls respond to targeted advanced attacks. | If existing deployed security controls are configured correctly to the right level of protection. |
Why Do Organizations Need Both?
Both PTEM and BAS solutions are essential for identifying security gaps and improving resilience against evolving threats. PTEM platforms provide a comprehensive view of security controls, helping teams quickly spot configuration gaps and assess coverage. Once those gaps are identified, BAS tools come into play. They stress-test security controls by running advanced threat simulations, validating the real-world effectiveness of your defenses. By combining the insights from both, along with threat intelligence feeds, security teams can assess the full impact of vulnerabilities and better prepare for the true scope of potential threats.
The Nagomi Proactive Defense Platform
The Nagomi proactive defense platform helps security teams evaluate and continuously improve the performance of their security program. It empowers teams to move beyond reactive cycles into a future of confidence and control. Whether it’s unifying the view of your attack surface, reducing security debt, or translating security metrics for stakeholders, Nagomi reduces threat exposure while transforming cybersecurity from a technical cost center into a strategic business enabler.
Using agentless read-only API connections Nagomi seamlessly integrates with over 50 leading technologies. As the first platform of its kind to leverage a data-driven approach, Nagomi connects the dots between attacker tactics, business impact, and defensive capabilities, enabling security teams to:
Enable the Business: Automate reporting, align stakeholders, and maximize ROI by leveraging your existing investments.
Unify Data: Gain complete visibility across your assets, defenses and threats, understand the effectiveness of your security controls, and optimize configurations.
Operationalize Intelligence: Prioritize threats based on business context, executing tailored, results-driven remediation strategies to reduce exposure.
Interested in learning more? Request a demo today.
