What is vulnerability management in cyber security

Vulnerability management is defined as a proactive approach to identify, manage, and mitigate network vulnerabilities to improve the security of enterprise applications, software, and devices. This article explains the basics of vulnerability management, its life cycle and policies, and shares some best practices for 2021.

Table of Contents

What Is Vulnerability Management? 

Vulnerability management is a proactive approach to identify, manage, and mitigate network vulnerabilities to improve the security of enterprise applications, software, and devices. This involves identifying vulnerabilities in IT assets, evaluating risk, and taking appropriate action across systems or networks.

Organizations across the world are placing investments in vulnerability management to safeguard their systems and networks, thereby saving themselves from security breaches and data theft. Often coupled with risk management or other security practices, it has become an integral part of a computer and network security today to prevent the exploitation of IT vulnerabilities, such as a flaw in code or design, to endanger the security of the entire enterprise network.

As more and more connected devices and endpoints are being added to digital spaces, the possibilities of cyber threats are also growing. According to research conducted by edgescan in 2020, a leader in full-stack vulnerability management, more than 8 Billion records were breached in 2019 alone. Alongside, the meantime to remediate (MTTR) internet-facing vulnerabilities is 84.59 days, and for non-public/internal vulnerabilities, it is 75.29 days.

At this juncture, quickly identifying vulnerabilities and patching them to remove potential risk factors is of paramount importance for any organization across industries. Network vulnerabilities pose a grave security gap that attackers can use to damage network assets, trigger a denial of services, or steal intellectual property. Implementing a vulnerability management policy and other security tactics is vital for organizations to prioritize possible threats and minimize cyber attacks. This process should be performed regularly to keep up with the addition of new endpoints, changes made to enterprise systems, and the emergence of fresh vulnerabilities over time.

Embracing robust vulnerability management software assists companies in automating this process. By utilizing a vulnerability scanner or endpoint agents, firms can check a range for vulnerabilities across a range of diverse systems on their network. Post identifying possible threats, the risks they pose to the enterprise network can be evaluated in different contexts to best mitigate those threats.

On similar lines, constant vulnerability assessment and remediation are an integral part of risk and governance programs worldwide. In fact, many information security compliance, audit, and risk management frameworks that exist today mandate the adoption of a good threat and vulnerability management program in any organization. 

According to a recent survey conducted by Ponemon Institute and ServiceNow, there was a 17% increase in cyberattacks in 2019 alone, where 60% of the breaches happened due to a vulnerability that was not patched.

Integrating threat-centric vulnerability management frameworks in your organization can help prevent data breaches in this increasingly connected world. As more and more vulnerabilities arise, vulnerability management tools such as vulnerability testing and patch management form the key to identify and address new cybersecurity threats.

Also Read: What Is a Security Vulnerability? Definition, Types, and Best Practices for Prevention

Vulnerability Management Process & Lifecycle

In a world where attackers work faster than security professionals to exploit vulnerable systems, vulnerability management is critical to identify, classify, remediate, and mitigate vulnerabilities in any system. Organizations that set up effective vulnerability management architecture can ensure the security of their systems and stay safe from data breaches.

The lifecycle of any vulnerability management program consists of five key processes — checking, identifying, verifying, mitigating, and patching vulnerabilities in the organizational architecture. Let’s dig deeper into each of these processes:

1. Identifying vulnerabilities

At the heart of every vulnerability management policy is identifying the vulnerabilities existing in a system through regular network scanning, firewall logging, penetration testing, or employing a vulnerability scanner. Vulnerability scanning can be automated to assess your system, network, and applications for vulnerabilities and weaknesses such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting.

A good vulnerability management tool performs both authenticated (credential) and unauthenticated (non-credential) vulnerability scans to find multiple vulnerabilities, including missing patches and configuration issues. Furthermore, it can also assist you in discovering issues with open ports, operating system versions, listening services, and more.

2. Evaluating and prioritizing vulnerabilities

After vulnerabilities are identified, the next step is to evaluate them to prioritize vulnerabilities and rightly deal with the risks they pose according to the organization’s risk management strategies. This involves analyzing network scans, penetration test results, firewall logs, and vulnerability scans to pinpoint the weak points that can trigger possible malware attacks or other malicious events.

By integrating both physical testing and social engineering, you can identify anomalies within the networks that attackers can take advantage of to compromise your system security. Prioritizing the vulnerabilities helps you identify high-priority items, which can be externally facing, lack fault tolerance, or store sensitive information such as customer data, personally identifiable information (PII), or protected health information (PHI).

3. Verifying vulnerabilities

Then comes the verification process, which includes checking whether the identified vulnerable points can be exploited on servers, applications, networks, or other systems. Performing vulnerability validation alongside penetration testing tools and techniques assist you in weeding out false positives. 

It also lets you focus on real vulnerabilities that require immediate attention. Verifying the risk factors allows organizations to classify the severity of a vulnerability and the level of risk it presents to the organization, thereby empowering them to fortify their architecture against malicious attacks.

Also Read: What Is a Security Vulnerability? Definition, Types, and Best Practices for Prevention

4. Patching vulnerabilities

Once a vulnerability is verified and deemed to be a potential risk for the organization, the next step is to prioritize how to patch or fix that vulnerability in the network. There are different ways to patch vulnerabilities.

• • Remediation: Remediating a vulnerability means devising a program to fully fix or patch the vulnerability such that attackers cannot exploit them. This is the most efficient treatment option to eliminate threat vectors in any system.
  • Mitigation: On the other hand, mitigating vulnerabilities refer to adopting measures that can lessen the impact or scope of security breaches, such as going offline or quarantining an attack. Mitigation is necessary when proper fixes or patches are not yet available for identified vulnerabilities and can often help buy time for security teams to prevent breaches until they can remediate a vulnerability.
  • Acceptance: This involves taking no action to fix or lessen the odds and impact of vulnerable points. Accepting a vulnerable vector as a possible threat is acceptable when that particular vulnerability is found to be low risk and when the cost of fixing the vulnerability is significantly higher than the expenses incurred if it is exploited.

5. Tracking, metrics, and reporting vulnerabilities

Finally, employing regular tracking, metrics, and reporting is key to drive value and boost the efficiency of vulnerability management programs. Risk-based tracking, metrics, and reporting not only equips IT teams with an understanding of the remediation techniques to quickly fix any vulnerabilities but also helps them monitor vulnerability trends over time in different parts of their network.

Rather than being just a tool for scanning and patching your systems, an effective vulnerability management process can serve as vital support for organizations to meet compliances and regulatory standards such as the PCI DSS or HIPAA. Vulnerability management is not a one-time assignment but a continuous process that is integral to your overall information security lifecycle. It requires continuous monitoring, improvement, and assessment.

Also Read: Top 10 Vulnerability Management Tools

Top 10 Best Practices for Vulnerability Management in 2021

Vulnerability management is a process that needs to be performed continuously to identify, classify, remediate, and mitigate vulnerabilities in any company. Organizations with a proactive and preemptive approach for the safety of their applications, devices, and networks integrate effective threat and vulnerability management tools in their stack and stay significantly safer from cyber threats and data breaches.

However, businesses in today’s digital age need to follow some industry-best practices mentioned below to keep up with the new systems added to networks, changes to the systems, or the emergence of new classes of vulnerabilities. By adopting these best practices, you can enhance your firm’s security status and make the best of your vulnerability management policy.

 Vulnerability Management Best Practices

1. Scan every device and endpoint in your ecosystem

Properly scanning all devices and access points that touch the system is crucial to eliminate vulnerabilities across your entire enterprise network. By scanning all assets within the ecosystem, firms can gain valuable insights into the possible weaknesses in their architecture and assist them in devising the right remediation, mitigation, or acceptance strategies based on the severity of the risks. Moreover, creating an inventory list that includes all the devices and endpoints in the network and their functions can help you prioritize the targets to be included in the vulnerability scanning process.

2. Scan for vulnerabilities regularly

The interval between vulnerability scans determines the efficiency of threat management. At a time when attackers are constantly improving their approaches, adopting a culture of frequently scanning your infrastructure helps bridge the gap that can leave your ecosystem open to new vulnerabilities.

Scanning your devices on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis is a good way to stay aware of the weaknesses in the system and drive value to your business. Network architecture, device impact on the network, and other factors are key to determining the frequency of vulnerability scanning required in any network.

3. Assign owners to critical assets

Ensuring accountability for critical assets by assigning owners to each of them is another best practice that enterprises can follow to drive the success of their vulnerability management programs. Besides, assigning asset owners who are responsible for keeping those particular assets patched and who suffer the most when those assets are compromised can be an efficient strategy to keep your system safe and secure. While assigning asset ownership, ensure that you include both technical and business personnel in the list, such that your teams are well-equipped to address any kind of threatening situation.

Also Read: Top 10 Vulnerability Management Tools for 2021

4. Document all scans and their results

Another important factor to consider in every vulnerability management process is to schedule each scan via a management-approved timetable, along with mandated audit reports covering the scan results. By employing proper documentation of the frequency of security scans and their results, organizations can easily track the trends and issue recurrences in their ecosystem, thereby empowering them to identify susceptible systems and improve accountability.

Furthermore, always ensure that the reports are formulated in such a way that they are readable not only to the technically savvy business teams but also to the non-technical management and executive staff in the company.

5. Ensure risk-based prioritization of the patching processes and security assessments

Once all the IT assets are enrolled and assigned, security assessments and patching processes are assigned based on the risks. Prioritizing allows IT teams to focus on patching the assets that pose the highest levels of risk to the organization, for example, patching the discovered vulnerabilities in all internet-facing or connected devices existing within the system.

On similar lines, employing both automated and manual assessments on assets can help you prioritize the frequency and extensibility of assessments required based on a risk value to each of them. For example, a high-risk asset can be assigned a broad assessment and manual expert security testing, whereas a low-risk asset needs only a general vulnerability scan.

6. Empower IT Teams with the right security training to ensure continuous security assessments

Sensitizing IT teams to integrate continuous security assessments in their build-deploy cycles through regular training programs is crucial to ensure efficient vulnerability management. The success of the vulnerability management program rests on the IT team’s ability to keep all the necessary assets ready and configured after the assessment schedules are decided.

Besides, it is the job of the IT team to mitigate, patch, or remediate the asset vulnerabilities once they are identified. Therefore, providing appropriate training to the IT teams in secure baselines and coding guidelines goes a long way in patching the vulnerabilities faster.

Also Read: What Is Advanced Persistent Threat? Definition, Lifecycle, Identification, and Management Best Practices

7. Maintain updated security baselines and map them with compliance requirements

Organizations can greatly improve their overall IT security strategies by embedding secure baselines or standards to conduct assessments in their vulnerability management policies. Furthermore, these baselines must be created for different types of assets and need categorization into mandatory, important, and optional standards.

Alongside this, you also need to ensure that these baselines created are mapped to the compliance requirements of your business. For instance, if you are running an online shop, you need to map your baseline metrics to meet PCI DSS compliance in payment card data handling. This, in turn, can help firms to better adhere to security baselines and standards while being compliant with global standards.

8. Define, measure, and review the metrics of the program

After enrolling and assessing all the IT assets in an organization, the next step is to ensure that the vulnerability management process is running efficiently and on track. You must find the time to define, measure, and review the key metrics of your vulnerability management policy regularly and determine whether the existing vulnerabilities are being addressed or that the risks are being addressed with time.

Thought leaders can evaluate the time taken to acquire new assets or go live for critical business applications to gain better visibility into the existing security issues affecting their IT assets. This intelligence can then be utilized to fine-tune their vulnerability management tools, drive quality training, and enhance their IT security standards.

9. Ensure centralized visibility of the vulnerability management program

Next, equipping stakeholders in your company—employees, IT personnel, executive management, etc.—with a unified view of the current status of the vulnerability management policy can help you go a long way in enterprise security. For this purpose, you can adopt a centralized dashboard that offers comprehensive, real-time insights into the assessment schedule for assets, critical vulnerabilities that need immediate remediation, or the departments with the highest or lowest number of vulnerable assets. Adopting this proven best practice can deliver key insights that can drive the efficiency of your security protocols.

10. Deploy mitigation tracking in your vulnerability management program

Finally, nurturing a mechanism such as an MIS system to actively track the mitigation strategies against vulnerability classes and asset types proves very helpful. This system can help you determine the progress of patching, apart from providing insights on how to patch different classes of vulnerabilities or the time frame required for patching.

Added to this, assigning mitigation/remediation tasks to specific teams and integrating a tracking system such as bug-tracking can also serve as a crucial determinant to augment the success rate of a vulnerability management program.

Also Read: What Is Ransomware Attack? Definition, Types, Examples, and Best Practices for Prevention and Removal

Closing thoughts

Embracing an appropriate threat and vulnerability management policy is the basic building block of every security program and is crucial in meeting various regulatory or compliance mandates. An effective vulnerability management policy enables organizations to address the growing number of cyber risks while being confident in the integrity of their infrastructure and the security of their systems and data.

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