[New research] Outpost24 report benchmarks Benelux region’s attack surface security

The Benelux region is a vibrant hub of industry and business, but it has witnessed a significant rise in cybercrime, particularly in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, Belgium ranked 4th in terms of cybercrime victims per million internet users and a notable percentage of the Dutch adult population (over 15%) had fallen prey to online crimes. The urgency for robust cybersecurity measures is being felt across the region.

Understanding the complexities of your own organization’s digital footprint and how it compares to industry standards can be a daunting task. So we’ve used our External Attack Surface Management (EASM) solution to give you invaluable insights into five major industries within the Benelux region—Energy, Financial Services, Healthcare, Pharma, and Transport—providing a benchmark of how different attack surfaces stack up against each other.

How the analysis works 

Outpost24’s EASM solution finds and analyzes public IT assets that are connected to the internet by simulating normal internet traffic, passive discovery, and testing techniques. This gives full visibility into both the known and unknown assets comprising an organization’s assets and scores them in terms of risk. It’s a completely passive process and only analyzes publicly accessible information.

From each of the five industries, we chose a mix of (non-customer) organizations, representing a healthy mix of larger well-known companies and smaller ones. Then for each organization, we analyzed an average of ten domains (a primary domain being the top domain of a business – like Outpost24.com). From there, our technical teams pulled out some of the most interesting data trends.

What the team benchmarked  

After analyzing over 30,000 online assets, the research team were able to pick out several interesting findings. For example, we ranked the security observations across all industries and found Healthcare to have the highest number of issues ranked as ‘critical, very high, or high’ (27.2%). Problems within the Healthcare industry would prove to be a theme across several other categories too.

We also ranked the industries in terms of known exploitable vulnerabilities (KEVs), amount of credentials leaked on the dark web, and a number of web server hygiene issues. This is just a small fraction of what our analysts found – be sure to read the full report to get the full picture on how your organization stacks up against the industry benchmarks.

Download your report today

Whether you’re a large corporation or a small enterprise, knowing where you stand in terms of cybersecurity is crucial. This report not only highlights the common risks and vulnerabilities across key sectors but also demonstrates how EASM can be utilized to evaluate and enhance your organization’s defenses. Download your report today to ensure that your cybersecurity efforts are as effective as they can be in these challenging times. Get my report.

About the Author

Marcus White Cybersecurity Specialist, Outpost24

Marcus is an Outpost24 cybersecurity specialist based in the UK. He’s been in the B2B technology sector for 8+ years and has worked closely with products in email security, data loss prevention, endpoint security, and identity and access management.