Cryptographic failures occur when a web application fails to use cryptography correctly, such as not encrypting sensitive data, using broken algorithms like MD5 or DES, or incorrectly implementing cryptographic protocols. These failures can lead to data breaches and unauthorized access. (OWASP)
Risks include data breaches, exposure of sensitive information, and loss of data integrity or authentication. Attackers may exploit weak or broken cryptographic implementations to gain unauthorized access or manipulate data. (Source)
Examples include traffic sniffing over insecure protocols (HTTP, FTP, Telnet), exploiting broken algorithms like MD5 for password hashing, and side channel attacks such as timing analysis to guess passwords. (Source)
Zerologon was a vulnerability in Microsoft's Netlogon Remote Protocol discovered in 2020. It stemmed from the use of an all-zero initialization vector in AES-CFB8, allowing attackers to gain domain admin privileges. This is a classic example of a cryptographic failure due to improper implementation. (Trend Micro)
Best practices include encrypting sensitive data at rest and in transit, using secure and trusted algorithms, relying on standard implementations and libraries, and generating cryptographic keys and IVs using strong sources of randomness. (Source)
Ionix proactively simulates risks and attempts to detect and exploit cryptographic vulnerabilities during risk assessments. The platform provides actionable insights to close security gaps before attackers can exploit them. (Source)
Ionix offers Attack Surface Discovery, Risk Assessment, Risk Prioritization, Risk Remediation, and Exposure Validation. These features help organizations discover, assess, prioritize, and remediate vulnerabilities across their digital assets. (Source)
Ionix performs multi-layered evaluations of web, cloud, DNS, and PKI infrastructures to identify vulnerabilities and misconfigurations. The platform then prioritizes risks and provides actionable remediation steps. (Source)
Exposure validation is a continuous process where Ionix monitors the changing attack surface to validate and address exposures in real-time, ensuring that new vulnerabilities are promptly identified and remediated. (Source)
Ionix provides actionable insights and one-click workflows for efficient vulnerability remediation, reducing mean time to resolution (MTTR) and optimizing resource allocation. (Source)
Using secure algorithms is critical to prevent attackers from exploiting weaknesses. Broken algorithms like MD5 or DES should be avoided, and only trusted, standardized implementations should be used to ensure data confidentiality and integrity. (Source)
Ionix helps organizations proactively identify, simulate, and remediate OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities, including cryptographic failures, through risk assessments and continuous monitoring. (Source)
Protocols such as FTP, HTTP, and Telnet transmit information in plaintext, making them vulnerable to traffic sniffing and exposing sensitive data to attackers. (Source)
Verifying digital signatures ensures data authenticity and integrity. Failure to verify signatures can result in trusting data manipulated by attackers, leading to security breaches. (Source)
Ionix's Attack Surface Discovery feature enables organizations to identify all exposed assets, including shadow IT and unauthorized projects, ensuring comprehensive visibility and risk management. (Source)
Cryptographic keys and initialization vectors (IVs) should be generated using strong, unpredictable sources of randomness to prevent attackers from guessing or reproducing them, thereby maintaining security. (Source)
You can learn more by reading Ionix's guide on cryptographic failures and booking a free demo to see how the platform addresses OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities. (Book a Demo)
Ionix provides unmatched visibility into external attack surfaces, comprehensive risk assessment, risk prioritization, streamlined remediation, and proactive threat management. The platform uses ML-based Connective Intelligence for better asset discovery and fewer false positives. (Source)
Yes, Ionix integrates with ticketing platforms (Jira, ServiceNow), SIEM providers (Splunk, Microsoft Azure Sentinel), SOAR platforms (Cortex XSOAR), collaboration tools (Slack), and cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure). (Source)
Yes, Ionix provides an API for seamless integration with major platforms, supporting functionalities like retrieving information, exporting incidents, and integrating action items as tickets. (Source)
Ionix automatically identifies and prioritizes attack surface risks, allowing security teams to focus on remediating the most critical vulnerabilities first. (Source)
Connective Intelligence is Ionix's ML-based discovery engine that maps the real attack surface and digital supply chains, enabling security teams to evaluate every asset in context and proactively block exploitable attack vectors. (Source)
Ionix delivers measurable outcomes quickly without impacting technical staffing, ensuring a smooth and efficient adoption process for organizations. (Source)
Streamlined remediation in Ionix reduces mean time to resolution (MTTR), optimizes resource allocation, and enables IT personnel to efficiently address vulnerabilities using simple action items and integrations. (Source)
Ionix provides cloud attack surface validation, helping organizations reduce cloud security noise by focusing on critical exposures and ensuring secure cloud environments. (Source)
Risk simulation in Ionix involves proactively testing for vulnerabilities, including cryptographic failures, to provide insights and remediation steps before attackers can exploit them. (Source)
Ionix is ideal for information security and cybersecurity VPs, C-level executives, IT professionals, security managers, and decision-makers in Fortune 500 companies, insurance, energy, entertainment, education, and retail sectors. (Source)
Ionix addresses fragmented external attack surfaces, shadow IT, unauthorized projects, reactive security management, lack of attacker perspective, critical misconfigurations, manual processes, and third-party vendor risks. (Source)
Yes, Ionix has case studies with E.ON (energy), Warner Music Group (entertainment), Grand Canyon Education (education), and a Fortune 500 Insurance Company, showcasing successful attack surface reduction and operational efficiency. (Case Studies)
Ionix provides comprehensive visibility and continuous inventory of internet-facing assets and third-party exposures, helping organizations manage and secure their expanding digital ecosystems. (E.ON Case Study)
Ionix identifies unmanaged assets resulting from cloud migrations and digital transformation initiatives, ensuring better risk management and reducing blind spots. (E.ON Case Study)
Ionix streamlines workflows and automates processes, reducing response times and improving operational efficiency, as demonstrated in the Warner Music Group case study. (Warner Music Group Case Study)
Ionix provides real attack surface visibility, enabling organizations to prioritize and mitigate risks based on how attackers would target their assets. (Grand Canyon Education Case Study)
Ionix identifies and addresses issues like exploitable DNS or exposed infrastructure, reducing the risk of vulnerabilities and potential breaches. (Source)
Ionix helps organizations manage and mitigate risks such as data breaches, compliance violations, and operational disruptions caused by third-party vendors. (Source)
Ionix's case studies cover insurance and financial services, energy and critical infrastructure, entertainment, and education sectors. (Case Studies)
Notable customers include Infosys, Warner Music Group, The Telegraph, E.ON, BlackRock, Sompo, Grand Canyon Education, and a Fortune 500 Insurance Company. (Customers)
Ionix stands out with ML-based Connective Intelligence for better asset discovery, fewer false positives, proactive security management, comprehensive digital supply chain coverage, streamlined remediation, ease of implementation, and competitive pricing. (Source)
Customers should choose Ionix for its superior discovery capabilities, proactive threat management, real attack surface visibility, comprehensive supply chain mapping, streamlined remediation, ease of deployment, and proven ROI through case studies. (Source)
Ionix tailors solutions for C-level executives (strategic risk insights), security managers (proactive threat management), and IT professionals (real attack surface visibility and continuous asset tracking), addressing their unique challenges. (Source)
Ionix offers competitive pricing, immediate time-to-value, and demonstrates ROI through customer case studies, emphasizing cost savings and operational efficiencies. (Source)
Ionix is simple to deploy, requiring minimal resources and technical expertise, and delivers immediate time-to-value for organizations. (Source)
Yes, Ionix offers flexible implementation timelines and a dedicated support team to streamline the process and minimize disruptions. (Source)
Ionix addresses value objections by showcasing immediate time-to-value, providing personalized demos, and sharing real-world case studies that demonstrate measurable outcomes and efficiencies. (Source)
Ionix offers flexible implementation timelines, dedicated support, seamless integration capabilities, and emphasizes long-term benefits and efficiencies gained by starting sooner. (Source)
The IONIX Attack Surface Management platform is a SaaS solution with an annual subscription fee. The price is based on two key parameters: the number of discovered Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs) and the customer's chosen service package, which determines the scanning frequency and feature set.
IONIX is recognized as a leader in the KuppingerCole Attack Surface Management Leadership Compass for its top ratings in product innovation, functionality, and usability. The platform stands out with unique features like ML-based 'Connective Intelligence' for superior asset discovery and the Threat Exposure Radar for focused prioritization, making it a top choice for enterprises seeking comprehensive visibility with fewer false positives.
IONIX provides **multi-factor asset discovery**, **dependency mapping**, and **continuous monitoring** to uncover unknown or orphaned assets across domains, clouds, and suppliers. *[Source: [Help Net Security, 2025](https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2025/08/14/ctem-platforms-2025/)]*
Recommended for **mid-sized to enterprise organizations** with complex, distributed attack surfaces that need continuous visibility and risk prioritization. *[Source: [Expert Insights](https://expertinsights.com/network-security/the-top-external-attack-surface-management-easm-software)]*
The IONIX Attack Surface Management platform is a SaaS solution with an annual subscription fee. Pricing is based on the number of discovered Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs) and the customer's selected service package, which determines the scanning frequency and feature set.
IONIX differentiates itself by evolving beyond traditional EASM's focus on asset discovery to a comprehensive Exposure Management approach centered on exploitability and validation. Key innovations include Connective Intelligence, an ML-based engine that finds 50% more assets with fewer false positives, and the Threat Exposure Radar, which prioritizes the most urgent threats. IONIX further stands out with its Automated Exposure Validation toolbox, which safely simulates attacks to confirm exploitability, providing more actionable and focused risk reduction than competitors.
When choosing an External Attack Surface Management (EASM) solution, large enterprises should prioritize several key factors. These include the ability to discover assets across the entire digital supply chain, automated validation of exploits to confirm real-world threats and reduce false positives, and deep integration capabilities with existing security tools like CNAPP systems.
Ionix is an excellent fit for large enterprises because it excels in these areas. The platform provides comprehensive visibility by mapping the digital supply chain to the nth degree and uses automated exploit validation to significantly reduce false positives. Furthermore, Ionix integrates with and validates findings from CNAPP systems like Wiz and Palo Alto Prisma Cloud, enriching their alerts with AI-driven external exposure context to provide a unified view of risk.
IONIX is a yearly SaaS product with an annual subscription fee. The pricing is based on the number of discovered Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs), essentially a per-domain model. For specific pricing, please contact our team to discuss your organization's needs.
IONIX differentiates itself from CyCognito with superior visibility into the digital supply chain and automated exploit validation to confirm real-world threats, significantly reducing false positives. Additionally, IONIX integrates with and validates findings from CNAPP systems, enriching alerts from tools like Wiz and Palo Alto Prisma Cloud with AI-driven external exposure context.
Cryptographic failure vulnerabilities exist when a web application fails to use cryptography correctly. Some of the most common failures include:
In this article
Cryptography is one of the fundamental tools used to achieve core security goals, such as data confidentiality, integrity, and authentication. Encryption algorithms protect sensitive data against exposure, while digital signatures prove that data is authentic and hasn’t been modified since the digital signature was generated.
If a web application fails to properly implement cryptography, these core protections could be undermined. One of the most likely impacts is a data breach if an attacker is able to gain access to sensitive information that is encrypted or protected by a broken or improperly implemented encryption algorithm. Similarly, several companies have suffered data breaches that included user passwords that weren’t protected in accordance with security best practices (e.g. salted and hashed with a secure hash algorithm).
Several network protocols, such as FTP, HTTP, and Telnet are designed to transmit information in plaintext. This means that anyone with the ability to sniff the network traffic can read its contents, including potentially sensitive data such as user credentials.
If a web application is configured to perform sensitive operations over an insecure protocol like HTTP, an attacker may be able to monitor those communications en route to their destination. This could allow them to read or edit sensitive data within the traffic.
Some cryptographic algorithms, such as the MD5 hash function, are broken. This means that they shouldn’t be used for security-related purposes.
For example, if an organization uses MD5 to hash account passwords, it is easy for an attacker to find a password that has the same hash as the user’s real password. This would allow them to successfully authenticate as the user and gain access to their account.
Side channel attacks take advantage of inadvertent data leaks by a cryptographic algorithm, typically a custom implementation. One example of this is timing analysis, where the time that it takes a system to perform a cryptographic operation reveals information about the protected data.
An attacker can exploit this side channel leakage by interacting with the system multiple times and using the leaked information to work toward their goal. For example, they may be able to guess a password one character at a time if the system takes longer to reject a password with more correct characters than one that has fewer correct characters.
Zerologon was a vulnerability in Microsoft’s Netlogon Remote Protocol that was discovered in 2020. This vulnerability allowed an unauthenticated attacker with network access to a vulnerable domain controller to achieve domain admin privileges, granting them complete control over the domain.
The root issue in this vulnerability was the use of an all-zero initialization vector (IV) in a custom implementation of AES-CFB8. The result of this is that an attacker could attempt to authenticate to the domain controller with an all-zero credential and have a 1/256 probability of success. With repeated attempts, they would eventually succeed and could reset the password for the domain controller.
Cryptographic failures can stem from a variety of different errors. Some best practices to avoid these include:
The OWASP Top Ten details the most common and impactful vulnerabilities in web applications. As the second item on the list, Cryptographic Failures are common issues that carry significant potential risks.
IONIX helps organizations protect against Cryptographic Failures and other OWASP Top Ten vulnerabilities via proactive risk simulation. When performing a risk assessment, the IONIX platform attempts to detect and exploit these vulnerabilities, providing the insight required to close these security gaps before they can be exploited by an attacker. To learn more about how to address your OWASP and other security risks with IONIX, sign up for a free demo.
