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Learn about PurpleSec’s fully managed vulnerability management services.
Author: Michael Swanagan, CISSP, CISA, CISM / Last Updated: 02/06/2023
Reviewed By: Josh Allen
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Table Of Contents
What You’ll Learn
Have you heard of terms such as ransomware, stolen credentials, and data leakage?
If yes, these are terms we often hear that are associated with cybercrime and business.
Unfortunately, many businesses have fallen victim to these attacks, past and present.
According to a recent statistic, the average cost of a data breach to a small business can range from $120,000 to $1.24 million.
It is not unreasonable to conclude that these and other statistics related to cybercrime will continue on into 2023.
To protect your organization from becoming a cybercrime statistic, you will need to be prepared and vigilant.
One method to achieve this is to conduct a vulnerability assessment.
In this article, I will explain what a vulnerability assessment is, why you need it, how to implement it, and how you can automate the assessment to continuously protect your environment from cybercrime.
Let’s begin by learning what is a vulnerability assessment.
A vulnerability assessment is the process of identifying vulnerabilities and classifying risk in an infrastructure.
The assessment also seeks to identify weaknesses in all connected systems to determine the most effective security measures.
In addition, it is important to note that the assessment is just one component of an ongoing vulnerability management and is usually a one-time evaluation.
The output of the assessment sets the tone for continuous vulnerability management which in turn will reduce the overall risk to your organization over time.
Learn More: Top 10 Most Exploited Security Vulnerabilities In 2022
As you prepare for a vulnerability assessment, it is important to understand how it compares to assessing the effectiveness of your security through penetration testing.
The key difference is that a penetration test is typically more targeted and comprehensive, with the goal of exploiting a system with the permission of the business.
The vulnerability assessment on the other hand, is intended to identify all risks, discover weaknesses, and vulnerabilities across all assets that are in scope for the assessment.
Regardless of the differences between the two, they can both be integrated to support the goals of your organization’s vulnerability management program.
Let’s now explore the various types of vulnerability assessments your teams can perform.
When preparing for a vulnerability assessment, you should first consider the location, asset type, and asset function to be scanned on your network.
In this section, we are going to describe the various types of vulnerability assessments and how you can plan the assessment for each type.
The vulnerability assessment process is actually one step in the entire vulnerability management lifecycle.
In most cases, an asset identification assessment is completed prior to the vulnerability assessment. Without this information, it will be difficult to ensure all devices are in scope for the assessment.
Let’s now review the main components of the process:
The timeline for remediation should align with the approved SLAs documented in your vulnerability management policy.
Now that we have the steps to conduct the assessment, let’s note the challenges in the next topic and methods to overcome.
In this section, I’ll explain 3 top benefits of vulnerability management your organization can attain including:
In order to attain the benefits listed, there needs to be a strategic plan or document that directs the efforts.
This plan is documented in a policy, let’s note this in the next section.
Conducting regular and consistent vulnerability assessments is a winning formula to counter attacks from hackers. Threat actors are continuously scanning your networks for open ports, default passwords, and unpatched vulnerabilities.
To reduce risk to your business, your security teams must be offensive to stay ahead of the threats, and defensive to protect your network. Simply checking the box to satisfy an audit is an open invitation for an attack that could lead to catastrophic results.
Planning and conducting regular vulnerability assessments leads to short- and long-term vulnerability management benefits for your security programs. Let’s take a look at these in the next section.
The purpose of the vulnerability assessment policy is to establish and document the strategy for the assessment. This policy should be readily available, clear, and lays out the strategy of the assessment policy from beginning to end.
The policy should fit the needs of your organization, not another. However, utilizing a vulnerability report template to create your policy is less daunting and allows you to fill in the blanks per se’ with your organization’s information.
The basic policy elements are listed below:
Once you the policy elements defined and approved, the next step is to learn how to conduct a vulnerability assessment.
We’ll explain this in the next topic.
Another strategy that will increase efficiency to your vulnerability assessments process is automating vulnerability management.
Including automation in your vulnerability assessment process is a major benefit to the overall vulnerability management lifecycle.
The benefits are:
In this article we have defined and explained the importance and process of a vulnerability assessment.
We learned how the assessment supports the lifecycle of the vulnerability management program by the following steps – initiating an asset inventory, creating a vulnerability assessment policy, and detailing methods to enforce the policy.
We also provided how you can go about selecting a scanner and present the scan results to your stakeholders.
We reviewed how you can overcome the common pitfalls that will enable you to streamline your vulnerability assessment processes.
Finally, we discussed automating features of the vulnerability assessment process and how it fits into your overall vulnerability management program.
By following the steps in this article, you now have the information to succeed in developing a vulnerability assessment strategy that supports your organizations vulnerability management program.
Michael is an IT security expert with 15 years of proven experience. He has experience leading and supporting security projects and initiatives in the healthcare, finance, and advertising industry.
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