What is vulnerability management? Vulnerability management is the meticulous, exhaustive, systematic process implemented to discover any potential threats or vulnerabilities, stop those threats, and repair those vulnerabilities before any serious problems develop with your important operating systems. Vulnerability management also involves fixes and patches to repair those threats and vulnerabilities. It is generally accomplished in combination with additional risk assessment and security practices.
It is imperative for organizations today to have a solid vulnerability management process in place to identify and minimize any and all potential threats to their operational systems. Vulnerabilities can also include company laptops and devices, weak passwords, malware, and poor encryption practices.
Vulnerability management is essential to protecting your organization and the systems, applications, and software utilized to keep your company safe and fully functioning at all times. Your organization has a fiduciary responsibility to your employees, stakeholders, and business partners to ensure that every effort is being made to keep your systems safe from cyber attacks and will continue running unencumbered. Any cyber attack, breach, or identified vulnerability could represent a loss of confidence and profitability to any and all of your business partners.
The main basic elements of a vulnerability management process can be easily remembered as “the 4 Rs mantra” : Recognize, Realize, Repair and Record.
Communication is key in successfully implementing a vulnerability management plan.
All affected team players need to be identified and brought into the loop. This involves individuals at different levels of your organization, from security to IT, QA, and analysts, just to name a few. The individuals who use the systems and software and everyone who will be responsible for the repair and fix of the vulnerabilities will need to be made aware of each individual’s roles and responsibilities, in addition to the overall goals and objectives of the plan, to ensure the complete success of your vulnerability management plan.
Generally, vulnerability management is part and parcel of a successful SOC (security operations center). Vulnerability management’s main objective is to highlight areas of potential technical deficiencies throughout your systems, applications, and software. Most organizations with a credible SOC have integrated these processes into the framework of their organization. It is important to note that vulnerabilities could also be a result of manpower and the lack of consistent training processes resulting in the proper knowledge of how to effectively utilize your operational systems.
Vulnerability management tools have several benefits, including:
When deciding on a vulnerability management solution, here are some key features you should look for: