The term vulnerability management has many different definitions. According to Compuquip cybersecurity, vulnerability management can be defined as “The practice of proactively finding and fixing potential weaknesses in an organization’s network security. The basic goal is to apply these fixes before an attacker can use them to cause a cybersecurity breach.” Another definition of vulnerability management by TechTarget is “A comprehensive approach to the development of a system of practices and processes designed to identify, analyze and address flaws in hardware or software that could serve as attack vectors.” To adequately protect an organization against attackers, it is crucial to have a reliable vulnerability management framework in place. This process can be broken down into six basic steps.
- Identification of Assets
- Identification of Vulnerabilities
- Evaluating Vulnerabilities
- Treating Vulnerabilities
- Reporting Vulnerabilities
- Confirm Success of Process
Step 1: Identifying and Classifying Assets
The first step is to understand the organization’s risk appetite, then your essential business functions, and ensure all of the assets your company has are known and associates with the business functions. It is paramount to rank the importance of these assets and who has access to them. By maintaining an updated inventory of these assets, it will be easier to understand where to look for and how to prioritize vulnerabilities.
Step 2: Identifying Vulnerabilities
A sound vulnerability management system comes equipped with a vulnerability scanner. The scanner has four stages: The first stage is to scan networks that are accessible by dispatching TCP/UDP packets. After examining the networks, it will spot any open ports and services that are running on scanned systems. If one can, it is useful to log into the system remotely in order to find detailed information about the system. Lastly, match up all of the system information with already known vulnerabilities.
Step 3: Evaluating Vulnerabilities
After the vulnerabilities are found, they have to be evaluated to assess risk so the risks can be managed. Vulnerability management systems usually give different risk ratings and scores. These ratings and scores can help an organization decide which vulnerabilities to focus on first. Using your earlier asset classification, you can quickly see which vulnerabilities should be prioritized.
Step 4: Treating Vulnerabilities
After assessing the risk of the vulnerability and deciding on the importance of it, the next step is deciding how to manage the vulnerabilities. Some of the ways to manage the weaknesses are:
- Remediation: Fully patching or managing a vulnerability so an attacker cannot take advantage of the vulnerability
- Mitigation: A strategy to lessen the effect of the threat and the possibility of an attack
- Acceptance: Accepting the risk and taking no steps to fix the vulnerability
Step 5: Reporting Vulnerabilities
Reporting has always been a problem. Siloed data, spreadsheets, outdated information creates inefficiencies and is holding teams back. Completing continuous vulnerability assessments helps organizations better understand how efficient their vulnerability management system is over time. By automating vulnerability scan data into reports and dashboards, it helps IT teams effectively understand the techniques that will allow them to fix the vulnerabilities. Given that reporting vulnerabilities is essential, CnSight has automated metadata aggregation and analytics. This allows for increased team efficiency-free staff from manual reporting, tracking down spreadsheets so the IT team can focus on improving security.
Step 6: Confirm success of process
The last step in the vulnerability management process is to make sure that this process was successful, and it worked. Run the scan again and see if the vulnerability still persists. A benefit in doing this is that it helps maintain accountability in the organization.
Why is it important?
Every year, the amount of vulnerabilities is continuously increasing. According to Security Week, more than 22,000 vulnerabilities were found in 2019. Data from CVE details that more than 16,500 vulnerabilities were reported in 2018, compared to 14,600 in 2017 – a 13% increase. By implementing a vulnerability management system that continuously checks for the latest vulnerabilities, the organization will be better equipped to prevent cybersecurity breaches. If there is not a proper vulnerability testing and patching management system, then old security holes will be left on the network for an extended period of time. This gives cybersecurity attackers ample time to make an attack and take advantage of the vulnerabilities.
Get a holistic view of your vulnerability management data with CnSight
These days, executives are held accountable for cybersecurity, and they must understand their risk. However, there is a large gap between the reports they receive to understanding the real danger. The disconnect that occurs here creates an incredible risk for the organization where they are essentially blindsided. TDI’s CPI and CnSight provide unprecedented visibility into your cybersecurity reality.
Here at TDI, we understand the importance of vulnerability management. We have developed CnSight, a lightweight and first of its kind platform offering executive-level analytics and visualization on the effectiveness of one’s cyber program. This powerful solution allows for a single executive-centric enterprise dashboard for continuous visibility into data across disparate teams and tools, effectively bridging the gap between security and operations to reduce risk through increased cybersecurity efficiency.
