Massive data breaches and cyber-attacks on giant multinational corporations such as Facebook, Yahoo, Equifax, etc., known for their monetary and engineering resources and infrastructure, have led more companies to pursue more robust and comprehensive security measures. At the core of such security measures is vulnerability management.
In this article, we will explore vulnerability management and its process.
What is Vulnerability Management?
Vulnerability management (VM) is the ongoing process of identifying, reporting, prioritizing, and fixing security risks, such as vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and gaps in a website or web application. The goal is to reduce the overall risk and strengthen the website’s or web application’s security.
Vulnerability Management vs. Vulnerability Assessment
Though these terms are often used interchangeably, vulnerability management and vulnerability assessment are two distinct concepts. Let’s clarify the difference:
Vulnerability Assessment
A vulnerability assessment refers to the process of identifying and cataloguing vulnerabilities within an organization’s systems and infrastructure. It typically involves using automated tools or manual methods to scan systems for known vulnerabilities. The goal is to provide a snapshot of the current security state by identifying flaws, missing patches, and potential threats.
Vulnerability Management
On the other hand, vulnerability management is a holistic and ongoing process. It goes beyond identifying vulnerabilities and includes activities like prioritization, remediation, mitigation, and verification. Vulnerability management aims to address vulnerabilities over time, not just during periodic scans.
While vulnerability assessment is focused on discovery, vulnerability management is focused on continuous improvement and the systematic treatment of vulnerabilities to reduce risk.
4 Reasons Why Organizations Need Vulnerability Management?
Vulnerability management (VM) is a critical component of an organization’s cybersecurity strategy, and its importance has grown as the threat landscape continues to evolve. Organizations need effective vulnerability management to:
1. Ensure Regulatory Compliance and Builds Credibility
Many industries are governed by strict regulations that mandate strong cybersecurity practices, including standards such as PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR, SOC 2, ISO 27001, RBI and SEBI.
For instance, organizations that handle payment data and must comply with PCI DSS are required to meet requirements 6.2 and 11.2, which mandate proper vulnerability management.
Similarly, the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Cybersecurity Framework for Banks emphasizes the importance of vulnerability management. According to Section 7 (Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing – VAPT), banks must conduct regular vulnerability assessments and penetration tests to identify and remediate potential vulnerabilities. Additionally, Section 4 and Section 5 highlight the need for a strong governance framework, which includes the continuous identification, assessment, and mitigation of vulnerabilities.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) also mandates strong cybersecurity practices under its Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience Framework for SEBI-Regulated Entities. Specifically, Clause 4.3 requires entities to perform regular vulnerability assessments and penetration testing (VAPT) to detect vulnerabilities, while Clause 5.1 emphasizes the need for effective mitigation measures to ensure the security and resilience of systems.
In addition to these, standards such as HIPAA and GDPR also include similar requirements for vulnerability management to ensure data protection. Vulnerability management helps organizations stay compliant with these standards by conducting regular scans and patching vulnerabilities.
Maintaining a solid vulnerability management program not only ensures compliance but also helps organizations demonstrate their commitment to security during vendor audits, security accreditations, or when providing proof to third parties. This fosters trust and credibility with clients, partners, and regulators.
2. Prevent Data Breaches
Unchecked vulnerabilities expose sensitive data to attackers. If left unaddressed, they can lead to costly data breaches, compromising customer information, intellectual property, or trade secrets. By identifying and remediating vulnerabilities early, organizations can significantly reduce the risk of data breaches, protecting both customer trust and the bottom line.
3. Minimize Attack Surface and Risk Exposure
Vulnerabilities are potential entry points for cybercriminals. A proactive vulnerability management program helps identify and address these weaknesses, reducing the number of exploitable flaws. By patching vulnerabilities and applying mitigations, organizations can shrink their attack surface, making it harder for attackers to breach the network and gain access to sensitive systems.
Check the best practices to reduce attack surface.
4. Strengthens Overall Security Posture
A strong vulnerability management program is key to enhancing an organization’s security posture. By continuously monitoring for vulnerabilities and applying fixes, organizations can better defend against both current and emerging threats. A proactive, ongoing approach helps improve resilience and ensures that security measures evolve in line with changing attack tactics.
The 5-Step Vulnerability Management Process
1. Discovery
The first step in vulnerability management is Discovery. A critical phase that ensures organizations have a complete and accurate inventory of the external attack surface including websites, apps, APIs and IPs that need protection.
Many companies aren’t fully aware of their attack surface. Legacy systems, shadow IT, or overlooked services may go undetected, leaving vulnerabilities exposed.
Discovery involves identifying and cataloguing all assets, including:
- Internal systems such as servers, databases, and network devices
- External-facing assets like websites, APIs, and cloud services
- Mobile applications
- Third-party services or dependencies
- IoT devices and other connected systems
By conducting a comprehensive asset discovery process, organizations can uncover hidden assets, reduce blind spots, and ensure that all critical components are considered in the vulnerability management process.
2. Vulnerability Assessment
Once all the assets are discovered, the next step is to identify vulnerabilities within them. This involves running regular scans and penetration testing assessments to uncover weaknesses, such as unpatched software, misconfigurations, insecure APIs, weak authentication mechanisms, or outdated cryptography.
The goal is to identify potential security flaws that could be exploited by attackers, both inside and outside the organization.
3. Assessment and Prioritization
After vulnerabilities are identified, they need to be assessed to determine their severity, exploitability, and potential impact. Traditionally, frameworks like the CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System) have been used to assign risk scores.
However, among large enterprises that host hundreds of applications, even 10 vulnerabilities identified per application could result in a backlog of thousands of vulnerabilities.
With false positives being so common, this results in vulnerability fatigue. Security teams should adopt risk scoring technologies to score and categorize vulnerabilities in the descending order of business criticality.
Is CVSS still the best for prioritizing vulnerabilities? This video highlights why risk-based metrics, considering likelihood and impact, are a smarter choice.
Offerings like AcuRisQ help focus on the most critical vulnerabilities based on factors like exploitability, impact on other assets, and potential business risk. We found that 65% of the identified vulnerabilities are not business critical.
4. Mitigation and Remediation
In this step, the organization takes action to address identified vulnerabilities. This could involve applying patches, reconfiguring systems, improving authentication mechanisms, or implementing compensating controls such as firewalls or intrusion detection systems.
For vulnerabilities that cannot be immediately patched at the code or system level, mitigation strategies like virtual patching at the WAF level can provide a rapid solution, helping to close vulnerabilities within hours.
5. Verification and Monitoring
Once remediation steps are taken, vulnerability management programs include steps for verifying that the vulnerabilities have been effectively addressed. Ongoing monitoring ensures new vulnerabilities are continuously identified.
The ultimate goal is to reduce the attack surface and ensure systems are secure from both known and emerging threats.
Common Mistakes Made while Building VM Programs
Building a strong vulnerability management program involves avoiding certain mistakes that can impede success and make the program less effective.
Lack of Structure and/or Direction: Teams are unclear about what they are working towards. It leads to a lack of ownership, siloed functioning, and confusion.
Not Using a Continuous Approach: Episodic VM programs cause a vulnerability debt. With such a backlog of unmanaged security issues, organizations lose control over the flow of vulnerabilities and the VM process itself.
Treating VM as a Numbers Game and Trying to Remediate Everything: This leads to massive wastage of resources while overburdening the IT Team. In doing so, critical vulnerabilities may be overlooked, causing risks to go way beyond tolerable levels.
Ignoring the Risk Landscape: A vulnerability-based approach that does not account for the changing threat and security risk landscape endangers your mission-critical assets. It erodes the effectiveness of your VM program.
Patching Schedule That is Too Rigid or Too Ad Hoc: Rigid patching schedules prevent you from adding a patch before the schedule if a vulnerability has been exploited in the wild or additional testing cycles for complex releases. If your patching schedule is too ad hoc, you simply overburden remediation teams.
Relying on a Single Tool Instead of a Comprehensive Platform: For instance, using separate tools/point solutions for discovery, scanning, and patching increases complexity and creates more work. A platform that integrates all these capabilities, such as AppTrana WAAP helps provide a streamlined approach that saves time and effort across each phase of the vulnerability management program, ensuring a more cohesive and effective process.
Not Measuring Outcomes or Measuring the Wrong Metrics: This deters your ability to refine and make your VM program more effective.
A well-implemented vulnerability management program not only strengthens your security posture but also builds trust with stakeholders.
Ready to enhance your security strategy? Explore vulnerability management best practices to ensure a comprehensive and effective approach.
