Best Practice for Continuous Vulnerability Management

Best Practice for Continuous Vulnerability Management

John McGee

As your organization grows, so does the number of threats to your network. As Rootshell Security explains, hackers and attackers are always trying to compromise your network and gain control while compromising your data.

That’s why it’s critical that you maintain great visibility and understanding of your network’s security posture. So, how can you do that today?

In this post, we’ll look at the best practice for continuous vulnerability management. We’ll discuss the steps that you can take right now to create a security program that’s ready for whatever the future throws at you.

Why is Vulnerability Management Important to an Organization?

Vulnerabilities are the weaknesses in the internal controls of an organization that cybercriminals try to exploit to gain access to sensitive corporate information or disrupt the system.

According to the National Vulnerability Database of the US National Institute of Standards and Technology, organizations reported more than 18,000 vulnerabilities at the end of 2020. This is the highest ever number of vulnerabilities reported in a single year.

Managing vulnerabilities is also essential to an organization as it helps to comply with established standards and regulations, like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Steps in Vulnerability Management

There are five steps in vulnerability management namely:

a) Discover. Here, the company needs to determine the vulnerabilities that could negatively affect its networks or systems. Once the company knows its attack surfaces, it can gather the vulnerabilities collected by concerned parties or hackers.

b) Assess. After you discover the vulnerabilities, you should determine their severity to prioritize your security efforts and quickly eliminate the risks.

c) Remediate. It’s best to first remediate the most severe vulnerabilities. Here, you want to limit access to particular risk areas or enhance monitoring to prevent hackers from exploiting those vulnerabilities until they have applied patches or improved the network’s protection.

d) Verify. Here, you should conduct further scans to assess if the vulnerabilities were remediated successfully.

e) Monitor and refine. The most effective way to refine your vulnerability management practices is to compare with your peers and determine the emerging threats. To improve your vulnerability management, it’s best to follow best practices.

Best Practice Continuous Vulnerability Management

To stay on top of the latest trends in software and technology, uncover new vulnerabilities and identify any new systems connected to the organization’s network, the organization should employ these best practices:

Develop a vulnerability management strategy

A vulnerability management strategy is crucial to an organization because it helps it to develop and improve visibility into the infrastructure. With better visibility, the company can effectively respond to any security risks. For the strategy to be successful, it needs to have security controls that combine technology, people and processes.

Use the right tools

In the present market, there is a wide array of vulnerability tools, but some tools are better than others. Before you deploy a vulnerability scanning tool, you should determine if it meets the following criteria:

  • Support automation – it’s best to implement scanning tools and technologies that allow you to automate processes and minimize attack surfaces
  • Define metrics – reliable scanning tools provide you with comprehensive and precise reports about the identified vulnerabilities, the general security overview and the trends analysis
  • Ensure usability – Your scanning tool should be suitable for every user, provide automation for repetitive tasks and be simple to install
  • Assess the rate of false positives – it’s crucial to assess the false positive rates of the scanning tool that you’re considering. Tools that often trigger false alarms can cost your company time and money as the IT and security teams will need to carry out manual scanning
  • Scan regularly – to protect your networks from new vulnerabilities, it’s essential to scan those vulnerabilities regularly and remediate them
  • Prompt remediation of vulnerabilities – the right scanning tool should classify various vulnerabilities based on the impact, severity and risk. It should also help you solve the most critical vulnerabilities first

Challenges in Vulnerability Management

Some challenges of managing vulnerabilities include:

  • Overwhelming volumes of vulnerabilities reports
  • Problems with the vulnerability scanning tools
  • Incorrect prioritization of vulnerabilities