The CTEM Chronicles: What Discovery Reveals

Are You Discovering Exposures, or Are You Just Collecting Data?

Most teams equate “discovery” with running a scanner and sifting through the output.

The problem is that scanners are built to show you what’s easy to find.

They’ll surface thousands of low-priority findings, but they won’t tell you what’s exploitable, interconnected, or business-critical.

In the CTEM discovery phase, think relevance over volume

Done right, it helps you uncover the full picture of your exposure: vulnerabilities, but also misconfigurations, privilege pathways, internet-facing assets you forgot existed, and more.

In this article, you’ll learn:

• What CTEM-style discovery looks like (and how it’s different from scanning),
• What types of exposures to look for beyond CVEs,
• And how to focus discovery efforts so you’re finding what really matters, not just what’s easy to detect.

Let’s begin.

What ‘Discovery’ Really Means in CTEM

In most security programs, discovery starts and ends with a vulnerability scan. You run the tool, it gives you a list, and that’s that. But in CTEM, discovery is a much broader, more strategic phase.

It’s about building a full, contextual picture of what’s exposed in your scoped environment, not just what’s unpatched.

It’s important to stress that Discovery is a continuous process. While adopting CTEM, your initial Discovery efforts will take more time than they will during your 15th iteration. As we discuss this phase, consider that ideally we are building a wealth of exposure data to filter through once a scope has been solidified.

Adopting a Different Perspective: How is CTEM Discovery different?

1. It’s attacker-focused, not tool-driven

CTEM doesn’t start with, “What does my scanner find?” It starts with, “If I were an attacker, what could I exploit here and how would I get in?” That means looking at:

• What’s exposed externally?
• What’s misconfigured internally?
• What pathways could be leveraged to escalate access?

2. It includes all types of exposures

CTEM discovery isn’t limited to CVEs. It also surfaces:

• Weak or overly-permissive IAM roles
• Forgotten or new assets
• Misconfigured storage buckets
• Exposed APIs
• Open ports and services that shouldn’t be public
• Privileged accounts with unnecessary access

These are often more dangerous than a patchable vulnerability, yet they’re the kinds of things standard scanners are not revealing.

3. It’s Contextual

Understanding and documenting impact is critical to this phase of CTEM:

• Where does this exposure sit in the network?
• What does it connect to?
• Who can access it?
• What data does it touch?

Context turns a list of findings into a threat story and that’s what makes discovery meaningful.

Why Scanners Alone Don’t Cut It

Let’s get one thing straight: scanners have their place. They’re great at surfacing known vulnerabilities and misconfigurations especially at scale. But in a CTEM program, they’re only one piece of the puzzle.

Types of Exposures CTEM Discovery Should Find

If vulnerability scanning is the surface layer, CTEM discovery is the deep dive. It’s about uncovering all the entry points, missteps, and oversights that attackers could realistically exploit—whether or not there’s a CVE attached.

Here’s what you should be looking for in a well-run CTEM discovery phase:

1. Known Vulnerabilities

Yes, these still matter especially those:

• That are exploitable in your environment
• That affect internet-facing systems
• That are part of known exploit chains (e.g. ransomware toolkits)

However, this is just the starting point.

2. Misconfigurations

Such as:

• Public S3 buckets or open blob storage
• Unsecured databases or message queues
• Admin interfaces exposed to the internet
• SSL/TLS misconfigurations

These are the common and provide attackers with a lucky break at your expense.

3. Unmanaged or Forgotten Assets

Maybe it’s a brand new asset or maybe its “shadow IT”. Think:

• Old apps no longer maintained
• Test environments accidentally exposed
• Cloud assets spun up without proper controls
• New devices on the network

If you don’t know it exists, you can’t protect it and attackers love that.

4. Exposed Credentials or Secrets

Discovery should include checking for:

• Public code repositories
• Misconfigured CI/CD pipelines
• Developer tools or shared folders

5. Identity & Access Risks

Include looking for identity exposure, such as:

• Over-privileged IAM roles
• Service accounts with wide access
• Dormant accounts still active

Privilege escalation almost always plays a role in real cyber attacks.

6. Chained Attack Paths

One weak spot on its own might not be dangerous. But link a few together such as, a misconfigured API, an exposed key, and a high-privileged user and you’ve got a real-world breach scenario.

CTEM discovery should help surface these chains, not just isolated findings.

These attack paths will be more apparent the more comprehensive your exposure data is.

Discovery in Context: Why Exposures Only Matter When You Know What They Touch

Finding exposures is one thing. Understanding why they matter is what makes discovery useful.

CTEM doesn’t stop at “what’s vulnerable” it keeps going until you can answer, “So what?”

Here’s how context transforms discovery from a list of issues into a clear security picture:

1. Business Impact Ties Everything Together

An exposure on an unused dev server isn’t the same as one on your payments API.

• Who uses the system?
• What data does it hold?
• How critical is it to operations?

That’s what turns a generic finding into a business risk.

2. Network and Access Context Reveals Reach

An internal-facing issue might seem low-risk until you realize the system has lateral access to your production database.

Discovery should show you not just the location of an exposure, but its connectivity, reach, and potential for escalation.

3. User and Role Context Shows Who’s in the Picture

Exposure tied to a service account is one thing. Exposure tied to a high-privilege admin who hasn’t rotated credentials in a year? Whole different story.

Understanding who has access, what they can do, and how they’re authenticated adds a vital layer of meaning to what you discover.

4. Environment Context Sharpens Priorities

Is the exposure in production, staging, or a personal dev box? CTEM helps you triage not just by severity, but by where the issue lives and what could happen if it’s exploited there.

Context is what lets you move from raw findings to real insight. It’s also what sets CTEM discovery apart from legacy vulnerability management.

How to Structure Effective Discovery

You’ve scoped your environment. You understand what you’re looking for. Now it’s time to actually run discovery.

Here’s how to structure your CTEM discovery phase so it’s efficient, relevant, and leads to action:

1. Layer Your Tools Intentionally

No single tool will find everything. Use a combination:

Each tool fills a different gap. Combined, they give you a richer picture.

2. Run Targeted Recon, Not Blanket Scans

Discovery doesn’t mean scanning every system. Focus your effort on what’s in scope—and go deep, not wide.

• Enumerate all assets within scope: hosts, users, data stores, APIs.
• Use external reconnaissance to simulate what an attacker sees.
• Look for relationships between assets—not just individual issues.

3. Bring in Threat Intelligence

Add threat intel feeds or internal red team input to shape what you’re looking for. If attackers are exploiting certain cloud misconfigs or API flaws in your sector, adjust your discovery focus to match.

This helps you find exposures that are relevant to today’s attack landscape.

4. Map Findings to the Environment

Once you’ve gathered data, start mapping:

• Where each exposure lives
• Who owns it
• What systems it touches
• What the potential impact is

This is what turns discovery into something that can actually be prioritized later.

5. Collaborate with Other Teams Early

Don’t do discovery in a silo. Involve DevOps, Cloud, IAM, or whoever owns the systems in your scope. They can help you find things scanners won’t and they’ll be more likely to act on the results later.

Effective CTEM discovery is about depth, context, and collaboration. If you treat it like a box-ticking scan, you’ll miss the point and the risk.

What’s Next: Prioritization

Discovery is where you uncover your exposures. But exposure alone doesn’t equal risk. The next step is figuring out which of those findings matter and which ones can wait (or even be ignored).

That’s where Prioritization, the next phase in CTEM, comes in.

In the next blog in the CTEM Chronicles, you’ll learn:

• How to separate signal from noise using real-world context,
• Why “critical” in a scanner doesn’t always mean “critical” for your business,
• And how to build a risk-driven prioritization process that your teams will actually trust and follow.

Because if discovery shows you the battlefield, prioritization tells you where to strike.