Successful vulnerability management (VM) can be the difference between a business remaining operational or going bust tomorrow (I will share some case studies in other posts). The foundation of any good VM program includes a process of identifying, evaluating, prioritizing, and mitigating vulnerabilities or weaknesses in a system or network that attackers could exploit.
What is involved in vulnerability management?:
- Asset inventory: Identifying and listing all the assets in the network or system, including hardware, software, and applications.
- Vulnerability scanning: Conduct automated or manual scans to identify vulnerabilities or weaknesses in the assets.
- Risk assessment: Evaluating the identified vulnerabilities to determine the potential impact of exploitation, such as data loss or system downtime.
- Prioritization: Prioritising the vulnerabilities based on their risk level and impact on the system.
- Mitigation: Develop and implement measures to address the vulnerabilities, including patching, configuration changes, or deploying additional security controls.
- Monitoring and re-evaluation: Continuously monitor the system or network for new vulnerabilities and periodically re-evaluate the risk assessment.
Effective vulnerability management is critical to maintaining the security and integrity of an organization’s information systems and protecting against cyber threats.
The threat landscape is varied from script kiddy’s, hacktivists to state-sponsored enhanced threat actors. In other words, got to keep up with what your organization is and who would target you, your employee’s and systems to disrupt your bottom line.