RISK-BASED
APPROACH
TO VULNERABILITY
REMEDIATION
Introduction
When it comes to data security, nothing is more important than understanding where you are most vulnerable. This is why many companies have realized that annual vulnerability assessments aren’t sufficient. Under a new vulnerability management model, successful companies have moved to monthly or quarterly scanning.
Vulnerability assessments are still only a small part of the battle, though. While increasing the frequency of tests has helped provide organizations with a much better understanding of their current security vulnerabilities, it has also created a significant challenge in that those responsible for fixing the vulnerabilities become overwhelmed.
This eBook outlines …show more content…
But, like the saying goes, the hardest part of a long journey is the first step.
Deciding what to tackle and remediate from the vulnerability scanning reports becomes easier when using a risk management approach. Each vulnerability is automatically rated using a risk level of high, medium, or low—and sometimes informational ratings could be set as well. However, these” only address the risk of the vulnerability and don’t take into account the asset where the vulnerability resides. By introducing risk dimensions of assets—such as the applications or services they support, their criticality, their location, and other factors relevant to your organization—your business can make more educated and informed decisions on what to remediate first.
Currently, tools for identifying the severity of the findings are doing so without any context of the networks they are scanning. The results are twofold. First, there are thousands of recommended fixes. Second, the company’s team can’t keep up with the fixes or becomes defeated before the task even …show more content…
By starting with a focus on your organization’s assets and protecting them, decisions about what to address become easier.
Saving your team’s time and ensuring that risks are being addressed in a consistent, repeatable fashion can become your reality. Start by gaining a greater understanding of your own environment, capturing all assets that are being scanned into some type of repository. Then, gather the ranking information about them.
Conclusion
Doing more than one vulnerability assessment a year is a good start, but today, it’s simply not enough. You must perform vulnerability scans on a regular basis, ideally monthly, with a methodology, and consistency to reduce your overall risk exposure in a meaningful fashion. Using your asset information and building risk dimensions, creating rules, quickly identifying risks, and implementing fixes is the key to a fully secure