From Awareness to Action: Building Resilience with Exposure Management
October kicks off Cybersecurity Awareness Month and it’s more than just a month of reminders. It’s a time to double down on strategies that convert awareness into measurable resilience. The threat landscape continues to evolve: in 2023, the National Vulnerability Database recorded over 29,000 new vulnerabilities, and vulnerability exploitation surged by 180% year over year, according to recent industry reports.
In parallel, thought leadership from CISA and NIST is pushing organizations toward more dynamic risk models and continuous defense. CISA’s evolving guidance (e.g. its shift toward exploitability-informed prioritization) encourages security teams to move away from reactive patch cycles to proactive security. CISA+1 Meanwhile, Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) continues to mature, reflecting a new standard: security must be proactive, always-on, and exposure-centric.
At RedSeal, we see this as the moment to evolve, not just check boxes, but to build a platform of continuous exposure visibility, validation, prioritization, and mobilization. CTEM is bridging the gap between compliance and true security confidence, and RedSeal is uniquely positioned to support your CTEM journey.
What Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) Really Means
CTEM, a framework recently championed by Gartner, shifts security away from reactive vulnerability patching toward continuous, prioritized exposure reduction. Instead of treating every alert as equal, CTEM evaluates the context of an exposure, where it sits in the network, how easily it can be exploited, and whether it leads to business-critical assets.
This approach mirrors what both CISA and NIST are encouraging: move from static assessments to dynamic, ongoing programs. The goal is to answer not just “What’s vulnerable?” but “What’s exploitable, and what matters most if compromised?”
For security leaders, this means:
- Gaining a business-contextual view of exposures.
- Prioritizing risks by exploitability and potential impact.
- Embedding continuous testing and validation into daily operations.
RedSeal Makes CTEM and Exposure Management Actionable
Exposure management can’t be achieved with disconnected tools or siloed data. RedSeal provides the unified, business-aware visibility that CTEM demands:
- Unified Map of Hybrid Environments – Across IT, OT, IoT, cloud, and remote, RedSeal builds a model of your entire network to reveal hidden connections and attack paths.
- Exposure Prioritization – Instead of drowning in vulnerabilities, RedSeal highlights the exposures that create the highest risk to critical systems and data.
- Resilience Measurement – RedSeal continuously measures resilience improvements, showing where defenses are strong, where gaps remain, and how risk is trending.
With these capabilities, organizations can operationalize CTEM, moving beyond theory into daily practice while proving resilience to executives, regulators, and customers.
Security is a year round endeavor, however Cybersecurity Awareness Month is a reminder to set aside the time to shift from passive awareness to action. Today, threats move too fast, attack surfaces grow too wide, and the window for exploitation shrinks too quickly.
Contact us today to learn how RedSeal can help your organizations shift.
