Cloudflare and Mastercard have established a strategic alliance to create cybersecurity tools for small businesses, critical infrastructure, and government entities.

This collaboration integrates attack surface monitoring from Mastercard’s Recorded Future and RiskRecon with Cloudflare’s Application Security suite. It helps organizations protect against risks in interconnected digital environments by providing them with the ability to map, prioritize, and automate remediation of hidden threats across internet-facing ecosystems via a unified solution.

Addressing the emergence of unknown attack surfaces

New technologies and third-party services can introduce unseen vulnerabilities as businesses incorporate additional vendors, shadow IT, and legacy systems into their operations. Security teams frequently lack visibility into these assets, leaving potential gaps that adversaries might exploit.

The combined solution aims to eliminate such blind spots by continuously monitoring digital footprints through the identification of internet-facing domains and software stacks via Recorded Future. Upon discovering unprotected resources, Cloudflare’s Application Security Portfolio can be rapidly deployed to secure these overlooked assets.

Companies receive detailed, constantly updated views on their cyber posture powered by Recorded Future. This includes A-to-F security ratings based on assessments for software vulnerabilities, authentication weaknesses, exposed infrastructure, and third-party risks. These evaluations are presented in Cloudflare’s Security Insights dashboard, organized according to asset criticality with relevant severity context.

Organizations can then activate security measures such as web application firewalls, encryption, or automated defenses directly through the Cloudflare dashboard to address identified risks.

Expert perspectives

Stephanie Cohen, Chief Strategy Officer at Cloudflare, emphasized that cyberattacks pose significant threats to small businesses, critical infrastructure, and governments. These sectors are often targeted at higher rates compared to global enterprises or Fortune 500 companies, making the partnership essential for enhancing their cybersecurity posture.

Johan Gerber, Global Head of Security Solutions at Mastercard, added that as small businesses contribute around half of the world’s GDP, closing the resilience gap is crucial for securing the backbone of the global economy. This collaboration supports Mastercard’s mission to fortify the digital ecosystem in partnership with governments and key stakeholders, enabling businesses to concentrate on productivity and growth.