Vulnerability Management

The automated vulnerability scanning process is essential to threat and vulnerability management.

In cybersecurity, a vulnerability is a weakness that can be exploited by a threat actor, such as an attacker, to perform unauthorized actions within a computer system or network. A typical example is mistakes in software code that provide an attacker with direct access to a system or network until the software code is patched.

Exposure is the number of vulnerable systems or networks that attackers can access.

Risk is a measurement of future loss from a given scenario, such as a ransomware event, derived from the probable frequency and magnitude of loss events. Avoiding loss is a fundamental reason for maintaining an enterprise vulnerability management program.

One of the many ways to help protect your business from unplanned downtime is to develop a vulnerability management program. These task management programs help your IT team with vulnerability identification, patch management, and optimizing your position against cyber-attacks.

The vulnerability management process directs organizations to employ vulnerability scanning procedures to identify the breadth and depth of coverage for information system components scanned and vulnerabilities checked.

Vulnerability management procedure is the practice of identifying, classifying, remediating, and mitigating vulnerabilities. Remediation is an effort that resolves or mitigates a discovered vulnerability.

Patch management occurs regularly as per the Patch Management Procedure. Effective risk-based vulnerability management requires an intense process mapped directly to these five cyber exposure phases:

1. Discover: Identify and map assets across the computing environment.
2. Assess: Understand the cyber exposure of all assets, including vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and other security indicators.
3. Prioritize: Understand exposures in context to prioritize remediation based upon asset criticality, threat context, and vulnerability severity.
4. Remediate: Determine which exposures to fix first and apply the appropriate remediation or mitigation techniques.
5. Measure: Report cyber exposure and other vital metrics to drive risk reduction over time.

A vulnerability assessment identifies known vulnerabilities that affect the devices and software used throughout a network. During the evaluation, the vulnerability assessment team uses scanning tools to check the different systems across the network for known issues.

These issues can range from out-of-date operating systems, old versions of software, or misconfigured services. When dealing with security issues caused by old software, vulnerability assessments help businesses develop patch management policies.

While many businesses monitor machines necessary for business operations, many companies do not consider keeping their systems secure and up-to-date. System uptime is a vital part of their business operations, and that security is only a concern for the IT department.

1. Do you have visibility to know what is happening on your business networks?
2. When was the last time your IT department updated your machines?
3. Do you keep an accurate inventory of all the devices on your network?

If you can’t answer these questions, would you agree that taking this opportunity could save you from the pain of unwanted downtime? Automated vulnerability scanning provides administrators with a list of exposures to understand.

Prioritize your Weaknesses

When reviewing the assessment report, business owners should focus on the security issues that impact the business’s primary operations first. Vulnerability management prioritization helps the security teams of various organizations understand what security issues they should address.

Examples of the security issues that companies should prioritize are operating systems with known exploits, easily guessable or default passwords, and insecure services.

Security issues like those previously mentioned can allow attackers direct access to vulnerable machines without the need for employees to click a link or open an email. Security risks that involve the use of out-of-date programs such as internet browsers should not take priority when evaluating and prioritizing risks.

Our team utilizes various vulnerability assessment tools and techniques to discover the security weaknesses that affect your business during our vulnerability assessment process.

For your internal network, Certitude Security® uses a network-based vulnerability scanner to identify potential weaknesses. We also offer external vulnerability assessments, where we provide a complete report of discovered issues and the estimated cost if a breach were to occur.

After completing the review, a tailored report is created and sent to the client.  Other standard vulnerability assessment processes include testing and verifying wireless networks’ security, scanning for open service ports, and helping the leadership team develop vulnerability and patch management policies and programs.

Compared to an internal vulnerability assessment, where the focus of the evaluation is on the devices within a network, external vulnerability assessments focus on resources outside the business’s network. These resources can include externally owned servers, 3rd-party business relationships, and website security risks.

In many cases, external vulnerability assessments use various sources, including the dark web, to determine their issues. Some external vulnerability assessment tools can provide an estimated cost if the organization experiences a breach.

External vulnerability assessments can also help evaluate potential 3rd-party suppliers to determine if they are a risk to your organization.

This policy aims to establish controls and processes to identify and manage technical vulnerabilities and their associated risks to your organization’s information assets to avoid potential adverse business impacts.

 

Why have a vulnerability management policy?

Organizations must assess IT systems and software to determine potential security impacts due to flaws, weaknesses, or intentional malice to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of business systems and data.

The policy specifies the resources allocated to vulnerability assessment processes and may include scanning frequency, scanning validation, post-remediation scanning, responsibilities, and reporting.

After a vulnerability assessment, the produced report can help the business develop patch and vulnerability management plans. Patch management is the process of keeping any software used up-to-date.

Outdated programs or operating systems are easy entry points for hackers, as exploits for newer software versions are hard to find. On the other hand, vulnerability management is the process of identifying and fixing potential security concerns that affect the devices within a network.

While vulnerability management may occur once every so often, continuous vulnerability management involves using vulnerability assessment software to assess the environment over a length of time. Ongoing vulnerability management programs are an excellent tool to help inform businesses of new security risks.

A vulnerability assessment aims to uncover network vulnerabilities and recommend the appropriate mitigation or remediation to reduce or remove the vulnerability exposure. A vulnerability assessment uses automated network security scanning tools to generate a list of potential vulnerabilities that currently affect organizations’ security.

The results listed in the vulnerability assessment report focus on providing enterprises with a list of vulnerabilities that need to be fixed without evaluating specific attack goals or scenarios. Organizations should employ vulnerability testing regularly to ensure their networks’ security, mainly with changes, e.g., services added, new equipment installed, or when new open ports are required to the Internet.

In contrast, penetration testing involves identifying vulnerabilities in a network and exploiting them to attack the system. Although sometimes carried out in concert with vulnerability assessments, penetration testing’s primary aim is to check whether a vulnerability exists and prove that exploiting it can damage the application or network.

Our assessment process leverages both vulnerability assessment using an automated vulnerability scanner to cover a wide variety of unpatched vulnerabilities, as well as penetration testing with the use of automated and manual techniques to help testers focus on exploiting vulnerabilities to gain access to a targeted network, host, and application in a controlled environment.

The vulnerability management program is a continuous cycle that incorporates a series of high-level processes, including threat discovery, reporting, prioritization, and response. While different security-related tasks characterize each phase, they work in tandem to reduce your cyber risk. 

Even the most robust cybersecurity protocols require constant refinement, which is why our security team developed a comprehensive process for combating existing and emergent threats. Our focus on deep system and network analysis can help you identify areas of improvement that you may have overlooked, ensuring you protect IT assets and business information from a variety of common risks, such as:

• Malware, ransomware, and viruses.
• Zero-day threats and exploits.
• Man-in-the-middle attacks.
• Data and credential theft.
• Botnet and DDoS raids.
• Phishing attempts.