Please enjoy this blog post co-authored by Raenesia Jones, Cybersecurity Analyst II, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP and Kevin J. Foster, Sr., Director Cybersecurity Operations, White and Williams LLP. Reviewed by Crystal Little, Editor of Content and Publications, ILTA.
Threat hunting for misconfigurations is the art of proactively seeking out the unknown unknowns within configuration settings, permissions, and assets that may be exploited by an attacker. This is an area that consistently proves its value and ultimately leads to operational resilience yet doesn't always receive the attention it deserves.
Clients want proof that their lawyers are serious about protecting sensitive data. When a firm can effectively demonstrate that, over time, threat hunts have led to tangible improvements, clients can feel an increased level of confidence that the firm is prioritizing security.
Increase Governance and Build Confidence with Your Clients
Routine threat hunting helps close policy gaps and strengthens compliance efforts, such as meeting ISO 27001 standards or other legal requirements. When clients see measurable progress in these areas, they recognize your firm as risk-aware with a proven approach to continuous improvement. By leveraging genuine discoveries, you can map policy and process enhancements directly to real-world findings—building trust and demonstrating your commitment to proactive security.
Adversary Emulation as a Validation Mechanism
Adversary emulation is the disciplined practice of modeling the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of real-world threat actors in a controlled and safe environment. When a misconfiguration is identified, routine adversary emulation exercises can validate and retest findings, while also uncovering additional weaknesses. Together, these activities create a powerful proactive defense loop—one focused on discovery and the other on validation through real-world simulation. This cycle resembles authentic attack techniques to expose vulnerabilities and assess the effectiveness of existing defenses, delivering a simple yet highly effective approach to strengthening security posture.
Reduce Attack Surface by Systems Hardening
The insights gained from misconfiguration hunts and adversary emulation exercises can serve as powerful inputs to inform systems hardening efforts directly. Systems hardening is the natural evolution of what happens next. Systems hardening means reducing the attack surface by correcting the findings from threat hunts and adversary emulation exercises. This can look like disabling unnecessary services and ports, tightening access controls, and enforcing the principle of least privilege, etc. With these findings, you can develop a security baseline for your assets, a defined and standardized configuration that strengthens resilience. As your proactive defense loop repeats the firm’s policies, they will too mature, and your baseline will reflect that growth over time—transforming continuous improvement into measurable resilience.
Threat hunting for misconfigurations requires a balance of strategic vision with operational depth, all while aligning with the needs of the business. By discovering these misconfigurations early, you harden your environment against adversary or accidental activity. Threat hunting for misconfiguration is a powerful way to demonstrate to clients and members of your firm that your committee is committed to protecting them and their data by identifying weaknesses, not just direct attacks, before the threat actors identify and exploit them.
Check out Part 1: Threat Hunting as a Form of Client Care
#Security
#RiskManagement
#Firm
#200Level
#DataPrivacy
#Just-in-Time