Vulnerability Management
10 Steps to Cyber Security
Vulnerability Management
The software we use to conduct business globally changes daily. Whether that is adding new collaboration features or integrating with other software products to enable us to work smarter rather than harder, the changes are continuous.
Infrastructure changes constantly too, perhaps to add new web applications for our customers to access or to provide a new level of access for our users who work remotely.
Identifying Vulnerabilities
By ensuring we keep internal and external vulnerabilities in our environment to an absolute minimum it makes it harder for attackers, taking them longer to make progress and improving our chances of detecting their presence.
Checking for and identify vulnerabilities should be a key component of your security strategy. A simple but effective way to monitor and manage vulnerabilities is to gain visibility and awareness of them through regular vulnerability scans.
Patch Management
Looking for vulnerabilities is only a single part of vulnerability management however, manually having to deploy patches across your estate – and beyond, for home workers – is an impractically huge undertaking.
Patch management solutions automate the deployment of patches into your environment, having OS patch management configured and managed at an organisation level is essential and, fortunately, is generally included with your OS.
3rd party patching, on the other hand, is often difficult to automate. Much of today’s software will automatically perform updates – the catch being that many updates will only be implemented when the software is run, so infrequently used applications can lay there for weeks harbouring a well-known vulnerability.
Vulnerability assessments are the best way to identify such problems and running scans regularly ensures that you are managing the risk these applications can pose to your cyber security.
Solutions for Vulnerability Management
Vulnerability Assessment
A Vulnerability Assessment is an automated activity that actively scans for possible security vulnerabilities within an internal or external infrastructure (including all systems, network devices and communication equipment connected to that network) that cybercriminals could exploit.
It is conducted against infrastructure IP addresses and produces a report to identify any issues found and allow you to resolve them.
Penetration Testing
Penetration Testing is a way to identify vulnerabilities before attackers do, evaluate how effectively you can respond to security threats, assess your compliance with security policies, and improve the level of security awareness amongst your staff.
An expert penetration tester (sometimes known as ethical or white-hat hackers) will run the tests. The penetration test will include a Vulnerability Assessment for an initial sweep of the infrastructure, but the key here is that the penetration tester will use the output of the Vulnerability Assessment and combine it with their experience and skillset to penetrate further into your network.
They will perform research and reconnaissance, threat analysis and exploitation of the vulnerabilities identified to reveal the full extent of your information security and its weaknesses.
The report from a penetration test provides a detailed list of any threats or vulnerabilities found and our recommended remedial actions. Threats and vulnerabilities are ranked in order of criticality. The report will also contain an executive summary and an attack narrative which will explain the risks in business terms.
Protect Your Data. Secure Your Organisation.
Vulnerability Management Cyber Security
Adam Gleeson, Cyber Security Vendor Alliance Manager at CyberLab, discusses the key elements of vulnerability management and shares how to protect your organisation through robust practices and monitoring. He covers:
- What is vulnerability management?
- Why do we need vulnerability management?
- Key steps to vulnerability management
Our Vendor Partners
We work alongside the most reputable vendors in cybersecurity to ensure your people can work safely from anywhere.
Speak With an Expert
Enter your details and one of our specialists will be in touch.
Whether you’re looking to implement basic cyber security best practice, improve your existing defences, or introduce a new system or solution, our team of expert consultants, engineers, and ethical hackers are here to help.
Our team specialise in creating bespoke security solutions and testing packages to improve and maintain your security posture.
We are 100% vendor agnostic and will only ever recommend the best products and solutions for your requirements.