Digital Exposure Risk
How much sensitive personal or professional information about individuals is publicly available online.
Indicators
An observed identity’s corporate email is present in a newly disclosed credential dump, increasing risk of targeted phishing and credential stuffing.
An observed identity shows repeated credential exposure across unrelated incidents, indicating persistent targeting or poor credential hygiene.
Passwords tied to an observed identity match across separate dumps or stealer logs, raising the likelihood of account takeover via credential stuffing.
Newly cracked strings show predictable variants of previously exposed passwords (e.g., year flips), reducing brute‑force effort required.
After a breach hit, an observed identity resets affected credentials within defined SLAs, reducing window of exploitability.
Stealer telemetry lists valid session cookies for corporate apps, enabling silent account hijack without credentials.
MFA recovery codes or TOTP secrets for an observed identity appear in logs, rendering MFA ineffective.
Token artifacts tied to corporate apps surface in dumps, enabling API access outside normal controls.
Saved credentials and PII from browser auto‑fill are harvested, widening abuse paths across services.
After session/token exposure, an observed identity’s sessions get terminated promptly, limiting dwell time.
Keys tied to an observed identity appear in public code or gists, enabling direct access to infrastructure or data.
Private keys associated to an observed identity are found in dumps or repos, allowing unauthorized host access.
An observed identity eliminates public secrets and rotates dependent credentials quickly, shrinking exploit windows.
PII (DOB, phone, address) tied to a corporate email surfaces in breach sets, enabling convincing social‑engineering and account resets.
Challenge‑response pairs associated with an observed identity appear in dumps, weakening fallback authentication.
High‑value identity documents (license, passport, SSN/TIN) are discovered, enabling impersonation and high‑impact fraud.
Threat‑actor forums reference the identity with telecom details or swap requests, increasing immediate ATO risk.
An observed identity initiates or supports takedown for doxxed PII, reducing persistence of exploitable data.
Adversaries create profiles mimicking an observed identity to harvest credentials or direct payments from coworkers.
Leak sites or auction posts mention the identity or showcase their data, signaling heightened coercion risk.
Dark‑web ads claim to sell access linked to the identity’s role or credentials, suggesting compromise or insider risk.
An observed identity routes impersonation findings to security quickly, enabling fast takedown and comms control.
Corporate snippets (keys, queries, customer data) attributed to the identity appear on paste services, enabling rapid replication.
Public file‑sharing links tied to the identity expose internal content beyond intended audiences.
Publicly exposed links attributable to the identity are revoked and contents rotated within policy SLAs, limiting reach.
Public profiles list role, calendar, or org charts tied to the identity, improving attacker pretext quality.
The identity minimizes public exposure of corporate contact routes (direct dials, personal emails), lowering spear‑phish precision.
Vendor incidents include the identity’s credentials or PII, expanding indirect paths to enterprise compromise.
Credentials observed at third parties differ from enterprise accounts, reducing cross‑site compromise risk.
The identity responds to exposure alerts rapidly, enabling faster resets and takedowns.
The identity fails to act on exposure alerts, leaving exploitable credentials or data active.
Downstream IdP logs show password changes or factor resets tied to the reported exposure.
Relevance
This category assesses exposure through breaches, leaks, or open-source intelligence that adversaries can weaponize. It shows how digital footprints affect enterprise attack surface.
Why this matters
This matters because attackers increasingly exploit personal information to craft targeted campaigns. Understanding digital exposure helps prioritize protection and employee education.
Consequences of neglect
If unmanaged, digital exposure provides adversaries with the intelligence needed for identity theft, spear phishing, and tailored attacks that bypass traditional defenses.