Companies and organizations must remain on high alert as they deal with the threat of malicious attacks daily. Even as security programs improve, hackers find new ways to circumvent these enhancements and continue to breach company defenses. By investing time and resources and building a better vulnerability management program, companies and organizations can decrease threats to their system and their level of vulnerability. To do so, they need to take the right steps.
When discussing the topic of building a better vulnerability management program, many other how-to articles list up to 20 steps or more. Five steps are universal, however, because they are both necessary and important.
1. Discover and Inventory Assets
To build a better vulnerability management program, you must first find and inventory the assets you intend to protect, and you must be thorough. You can’t protect something you don’t know exists. The assets that should be included in this inventory include:
- Computing systems
- Network devices
- Network systems
- Storage devices (both onsite and offsite)
- Software
- Hardware
- Third-party systems
2. Prioritize Assets and Customize Priorities
After you complete your asset inventory, the next step is to prioritize. You can prioritize based on compliance state, configuration, patch state, or vulnerability. This information helps offer insight into the tasks, items, or assets that require the most attention. Once rankings are complete, it becomes clear where time and resources should be allocated to quickly work toward mitigating vulnerability and the risk from outside attacks.
Remember, however, that you should not ignore or postpone items and assets that are ranked lower on the list. Every asset on the list adds to the company’s overall vulnerability and risk. In addition, once you have ranked your assets, it’s important to do periodic reviews and update the rankings because network assets are constantly changing.
3. Collect and Submit Data
This step focuses on specific data points and highlights different outcomes for the varying situations. These reports can be done as continuous or real-time monitoring for vulnerability analysis and help to identify potential risks prior to any issues arising. The optimum times at which data reporting should be done include during testing, prior to the installation of new features and programs, and at predetermined variables following implementations of new features and programs. In addition, companies may want to incorporate an automated tool to aid in compiling and analyzing the amount of raw data that is collected with data reporting.
4. Use Available Tools
When building a better vulnerability management program, many tools are available to aid the process. Use them, but be sure to use the proper tools and that your staff and employees are using them as well. Two tools are invaluable to building a better vulnerability management program:
- Patch Management. Keep your system current on the latest security patches.
- Vulnerability Scanners. Find common flaws and often overlooked weaknesses in your system and networks.
5. Plan Incident Response
When building a better vulnerability management program, your main goal is to prevent attacks or incidents from occurring. However, the adage “the best defense is a good offense†also applies in cybersecurity. Configuring an incident response plan—including a full outline of your team’s intrusion detection and source logging capabilities—in the event an attack slips through a vulnerable space enables your team to be prepared and to feel more in control if a real scenario occurs. In addition, this type of incident response plan will also aid in containing the event while ensuring the movements of the attackers are destroyed.
Many organizations and companies have come to accept that an occasional data breach or other minor vulnerabilities are par for the course. Some, however, may not totally comprehend that these minor issues can often lead to much larger, more costly issues in the future. By building a better vulnerability management program, companies can thwart even the smallest threats with proper inventory discovery, prioritizing, and planning prior to an outside breach.