Attack Path Analysis: The Missing Element in Modern Network Security
As technologists, we're taught to think in components—individual systems, discrete vulnerabilities, isolated events. Attackers, however, think in paths.
This fundamental disconnect explains why so many organizations remain vulnerable despite massive security investments. We focus on securing individual components while overlooking the paths between them that attackers exploit.
At Albarius, our platform's core innovation is attack path analysis—the ability to identify and visualize the specific routes attackers could take to reach critical assets. This approach transforms security in critical ways:
Contextual Vulnerability Prioritization Traditional vulnerability scanners flag thousands of issues with little context about which matter most. Our attack path analysis identifies which vulnerabilities actually create exploitable paths to critical assets—often just 6-8% of total vulnerabilities.
A healthcare customer discovered this distinction when our platform identified a critical attack path through a seemingly minor vulnerability in their VPN infrastructure. Despite being rated only "medium" severity by traditional scanners, this vulnerability created a direct path to patient records when combined with other factors in their environment.
Dynamic Risk Assessment Attack paths change continuously as environments evolve. Our platform continuously maps and validates these paths, providing real-time insights into how network changes affect security posture.
Choke Point Remediation Rather than addressing vulnerabilities in isolation, we identify strategic "choke points" where a single remediation action can sever multiple attack paths simultaneously.
One financial services customer eliminated 84% of their high-risk attack paths by addressing just six choke point vulnerabilities—significantly more efficient than addressing hundreds of individual issues.
The transition to attack path thinking represents a paradigm shift in network security—moving from protecting individual assets to securing the organization as an interconnected system. Organizations that make this transition gain both stronger security and more efficient operations.