Europe is on a march to expand its digital operations to keep apace with the growth rate seen in the US and China. This effort is not only scaling up the continent’s enterprise IT landscape but also introducing new layers of complexity.

In 2022 alone, the EU poured €127 billion into digital-related investments to boost recovery and resilience plans after COVID-19.

However, as businesses grow to meet these ambitions and a changed work culture Post Covid, they often end up with a fragmented IT infrastructure. Especially with multi-location enterprises, this decentralization makes it harder to track and monitor IT assets, including websites, databases, APIs, BYO- and IoT devices. Poor visibility over these public-facing systems increases the chance for weak and unmonitored entry points, expands attack surface and makes organizations more vulnerable to cyber threats.

How much do these overlooked digital assets weaken enterprise cyber resilience in Europe, and what role does External Attack Surface Management (EASM) play in addressing this challenge?

Europe’s IT Assets Face Growing Security Gaps

Exposed IT assets, unknown vulnerabilities, lack of supervision, weak monitoring, and stolen credentials are some of the most threatening cybersecurity concerns of many businesses in Europe, according to several reports.

Outpost24’s study, which examined the attack surface security of over 19,000 assets across key French industries, showed that over 20% of identified security risks were critical or high. The pharmaceutical industry had the most critical vulnerabilities (25.4%), while the transport sector saw nearly half of its known exploitable vulnerabilities (49.5%) ranked critical or very high. Financial institutions, despite having stronger malware defenses, recorded the highest number of leaked credentials on the dark web.

The situation is just as alarming in the DACH region, where a review of 20,000 assets exposed significant gaps. Healthcare organizations faced the highest percentage of critical security risks (23.2%), while 43.53% of financial sector web servers had encryption misconfigurations, leaving sensitive data exposed.

This growing vulnerability in IT infrastructure suggests a lack of proper tracking and monitoring of digital assets used by companies. Unfortunately, this is the type of IT environment bad actors like to pounce on at any time, any day.

The Real Threat is Not in the Number of IT Assets but in Their Weaknesses

For large businesses, cybersecurity risks aren’t just a matter of scale. While they have more employees and internet-connected devices than smaller companies, the real danger lies in the vulnerabilities within their infrastructure.

A vast workforce increases the risk of human error, which, according to Proofpoint’s 2024 Voice of the CISO report, is responsible for 74% of all cyber breaches.

But beyond human error, large enterprises rely on complex supply chains involving numerous suppliers and partners, making them prime targets for attacks like those that hit Equifax and SolarWinds. A World Economic Forum and Accenture survey found that 54% of large organizations view supply chain security as the biggest barrier to cyber resilience.

Also creating multiple entry points for attackers is the challenge of managing a broad network of public-facing IT assets, such as websites, database servers, APIs, cloud services, ports, and IoT devices.

The number of external IT assets is not really the problem, but the amount of weaknesses that go unnoticed over time. A recent Outpost24 Benelux EASM benchmark report shows that over 18% of observed IT assets had critical or high-risk vulnerabilities. More than 20% of analyzed web servers displayed different levels of errors, which suggests signs of misconfigurations that attackers can exploit.

If untackled, the sheer depth of these threats can lead to financial losses, operational disruptions, and reputational damage. IBM’s 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report found that breaches involving shadow IT increased costs by 10% to an average of $4.88 million.

GDPR violations can lead to fines of up to €20 million or 4% of global revenue, especially if data breaches go unreported due to poor tracking and management of IT components.

This situation requires businesses to step up their attack surface management efforts in a way that helps them to continuously monitor and secure their public-facing assets.

The Role of External Attack Surface Management (EASM)

External Attack Surface Management (EASM) keeps organizations on the front foot by providing continuous visibility into their public-facing IT components.

Outpost24’s EASM solution offers 24/7/365 asset discovery, and risk prioritization, as well as passively scans IP addresses, websites, ports and DNS to detect new vulnerabilities in known and unknown assets quickly.

EASM helps to reduce vulnerabilities by closing visibility gaps; a key concern highlighted by industry research from firms like ESG and Forrester.

One of the biggest challenges enterprises face is prioritizing risks effectively. To address this, Outpost24 leverages AI-powered tools and Cyber Threat Intelligence Feeds to assess domain ownership as well as vulnerability criticality and exploitability in order to help security teams focus on real threats rather than wasting time on assets that do not play a business-critical role. It outperforms competitors by scanning more frequently, covering all ports, and integrating new threat detection methods faster.

Findings from the Benelux report point to the need for European enterprises to adopt robust EASM strategies while emphasizing that automated and continuous monitoring is now a necessity to address shadow IT and secure critical business assets.

Pairing EASM with continuous penetration testing in one flexible package ensures organizations balance breadth and depth in their cybersecurity efforts while strengthening their overall security posture.

Conclusion

The scale of your IT environment should not be a liability. It should be a testament to the growth of your organization. However, you need an effective EASM solution to maintain control over your IT infrastructure.

Outpost24 offers a holistic approach to external attack surface management that enables you to track IT assets, control shadow IT, and gain the visibility necessary to defend against emerging threats. You can get started by getting a free attack surface analysis today.