Vulnerability management is an ongoing process of identifying, evaluating, prioritizing, and addressing security vulnerabilities in an organization’s systems and the software they are using. This critical cybersecurity practice is responsible for keeping your computer systems, networks, workstations, and applications safe from data breaches and other security incidents.
Vulnerability Management by Definition
Vulnerability management, by definition, is a cyclical approach to identifying and addressing security weaknesses within an organization’s IT infrastructure. Which doesn’t merely focus on just identifying vulnerabilities; it encompasses a comprehensive, repetitive lifecycle including asset discovery, risk assessments, prioritization of threats, and implementation of appropriate security measures.
It is a well-known fact that every business owner’s biggest fear is to experience a cyberattack that might have serious consequences for his company, because it is not a matter of “if” but “when” your company will encounter an attack. By implementing robust vulnerability management practices, enterprises can effectively minimize their risk exposure to cyber threats and protect their valuable digital assets.
What is the difference between Vulnerabilities, Threats and Risks?
Are you wondering what the differences are between them? Now we will provide you with the necessary answers.
Vulnerabilities are the weaknesses in a system that can be exploited by cybercriminals easily slipping through your organization’s security posture. These vulnerabilities might be software bugs, misconfigured settings, weak passwords, or unpatched systems. In a simplified language, think of them as unlocked back doors in your security system.
Threats are the potential agents or events that have the intention to exploit vulnerabilities present in your network. Such are malicious actors, hackers, cybercriminals, even natural disasters, and unintentional actions by employees; these are like burglars looking for the unlocked doors we’ve already mentioned.
Risks represent the potential impact and likelihood of a threat to potentially exploit a particular vulnerability. The potential risk and impact are calculated by considering the probability of experiencing an attack and the potential damage it could cause to your business.
What are the most common IT vulnerabilities?
One thing is for sure: vulnerabilities come in various forms, but we will now mention the most common.
Zero day
These weaknesses are the ones that vendors and organizations are currently unaware of their existence, meaning that there is still no “cure” for them. Unfortunately, such types of vulnerabilities are discovered firstly by cybercriminals.
Lack of encryption
Encryption is fundamental for every company’s business operations. It is a proven fact that cybercriminals seek out organizations that have not encrypted their databases; thus, they can easily steal sensitive data, gain unauthorized access, or implement a malicious code in the organization’s system.
Misconfigurations
When security settings or controls are incorrectly set up across network resources, system misconfigures can occur. Any system requiring human setup is prone to configuration mistakes and security gaps. These weak points become targets for attackers seeking unauthorized system entry.
Unpatched software vulnerabilities
Unpatched software vulnerabilities and flaws are prime targets for malicious actors. These weaknesses can be exploited to breach systems and access confidential information.
Regular software updates are crucial as they fix security flaws, especially commonly known vulnerabilities that attackers frequently target. Organizations that fail to keep their software up-to-date leave themselves exposed to increased risk of cybersecurity attacks.
Poor input sanitization
Checking and filtering input data is essential in order to ensure it does not contain malicious code, which could become a reason for catastrophic damages to your company. It is a well-known fact that cybercriminals are looking for systems with poor input sanitization in order to seed malicious code that would lately provide them with access, making them able to use it for their own criminal purposes and gaining financial benefits.
Vulnerable API
As most of you know, an application programming interface (API) is the digital interface that is responsible for applications being able to communicate with each other over the private network. The bad news is that APIs can sometimes expose your company to a risk if they are not properly secured against unauthorized access.
Insufficient access controls
Including excessive user permissions, unused active accounts, and lack of proper authentication mechanisms.
Network security gaps
Such are unsecured wireless networks, open ports, and weak network segmentation that allows unauthorized access.
Backdoor Access Through 3rd Party Software or Services
Introduced through insecure vendor software, unvetted cloud services, or compromised supply chain components.
Application security flaws
Such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and buffer overflow vulnerabilities
Vulnerability management vs Patch Management
Nowadays, a lot of people get confused about the difference between these two processes. Simply put, vulnerability management is responsible for discovering critical vulnerabilities in your system and prioritizing them based on the risk they present for your organization. On the other hand, patch management’s main goal is to provide a software fix to these security weaknesses by upgrading your software to the most recent versions.
A patch management system is not able to tell you that there is a vulnerability in particular software, but the vulnerability management system will definitely do it. On the other hand, the patch management solution will install the patch(es) in order to address vulnerabilities and close them in a timely manner that were identified by the vulnerability management tool. These two security practices go hand in hand in order to protect your organization’s system, workstations, and networks.
That’s the reason why successful companies integrate both practices into their security proactive strategy, creating a more robust defense against potential threats. The key takeaway? While patch management is crucial for maintaining the system’s healthy condition, vulnerability management provides the overarching framework needed for comprehensive security risk reduction.
What are the 5 steps of Vulnerability Management Process Lifecycle?
Understanding how to effectively protect your organization’s digital assets is critical, and this process begins with implementing a solid vulnerability management program. The vulnerability management lifecycle consists of five critical steps that work together, with the main purpose of creating a robust security framework that is able to protect your business from cybercriminals that are trying to exploit known or still unknown new vulnerabilities in your IT infrastructure. Let’s waste no more time and explain in detail what the 5 steps of the vulnerability management lifecycle are.
Step 1. Asset discovery and vulnerability assessment.
The first step begins with an asset inventory, including all of the hardware and software used in your organization’s network. Pay attention that since new assets are regularly being added to a company’s network, updates must be made before the beginning of every vulnerability management lifecycle.
Here’s a tip: Plenty of organizations have been equipped with third-party software that is able to automate the process of updating the inventory across the entire network infrastructure.
After identifying assets, the security teams proceed with an assessment for vulnerabilities. These teams are using different tools and approaches, like manual penetration tests and external threat intelligence, in order to identify vulnerabilities. On the other hand, reliable and advanced vulnerability management tools have features for continuous real-time monitoring, revealing the weaknesses in the network, helping to automate this process instead of doing it manually every single time.
By maintaining an up-to-date inventory, businesses have the ability to better understand their security landscape and track common vulnerabilities that might affect their systems.
Step 2. Prioritization
After identifying the vulnerabilities, now it’s time to be evaluated properly because not all security weaknesses pose equal risk; some demand immediate attention and actions, while others might be less critical. In order to prioritize them, vulnerability management tools analyze various factors such as threat levels, potential impact on the organization’s systems, and the risk of this weakness being exploited. Simply put, prioritization ensures that the IT team addresses the most critical vulnerabilities first instead of starting with less risky ones.
Step 3. Vulnerability resolution
The third step focuses on vulnerability resolution, where already identified and prioritized vulnerabilities are systematically addressed.
When facing security weaknesses, organizations typically have three options ahead:
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Remediation: Think of this as the ideal solution—fully addressing a vulnerability. This might involve installing updates (security patches), fixing a misconfiguration, or removing vulnerable components altogether. However, remediation isn’t always possible, especially with newly discovered threats or when resources are limited.
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Mitigation: When a complete fix isn’t possible, organizations can add extra layers of protection (authorization and authentication) to make it harder for hackers to take advantage of the weakness. This approach often makes sense when complete fixes are either unavailable or too costly to implement.
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Acceptance: There are vulnerabilities that have low impact and are unlikely to be exploited, so fixing such weaknesses wouldn’t be cost-effective. In these cases, organizations might choose to acknowledge the risk and focus resources elsewhere. This decision typically comes after careful assessment of the vulnerability’s actual impact and exploitation likelihood.
Step 4. Verification and monitoring
After the successful completion of “step 3,” the IT teams have to retest and verify that the taken actions have worked as intended and haven’t caused any system instabilities. These processes of monitoring and reassessment are able to provide them with accurate information if the already known vulnerabilities have been solved and if there are new issues related to the same assets.
During the reassessment stage, security teams conduct broader network monitoring activities. They look for new security vulnerabilities that might have emerged since the previous assessment, evaluate whether existing protective measures remain effective, and identify any environmental changes requiring attention. These observations and insights become valuable input for the next iteration of the vulnerability management lifecycle process.
Step 5. Reporting and Improvement
The final step is all about documenting activity from the lifecycle, such as vulnerabilities found, steps and actions taken to remediate them, and of course the outcomes.
Regular reporting helps organizations track their progress, demonstrate compliance, and refine their security strategies. Such reports provide valuable insights that can be used to improve future vulnerability management efforts.
Keep in mind that the lifecycle isn’t a one-time process because technology evolves on a daily basis and new threats emerge; for that reason, vulnerability management must adapt accordingly. Lessons and new approaches learned from every single lifecycle can make the next more effective.
At the end of the day, we have to admit that vulnerability management is a complex and time-consuming process that poses numerous challenges for the security teams of every organization, no matter its size. At some point they might feel overwhelmed and be unable to monitor the network constantly, especially in larger corporations.
The good news is that nowadays, there are third-party vendors that can take care of this complex process. Equipping your organization with such software can help streamline the process of identifying critical assets, discovering new and high-risk vulnerabilities, fully remediating these weaknesses, and, of course, applying effective measures to prevent cybercriminals from exploiting them.
What is risk-based vulnerability management?
Risk-based vulnerability management (RBVM) is an approach to cybersecurity that identifies and remediates vulnerabilities, prioritizing them based on their actual risk to an organization. This strategic approach focuses resources on addressing the most critical weaknesses first, which is it’s core strength compared to traditional vulnerability management programs that are known for offering basic security coverage and frequently missing critical threats due to their reliance on generic risk metrics. This, of course, results in IT teams addressing low-risk issues first and often leaving critical vulnerabilities unresolved.
Risk-based vulnerability management platforms use advanced analytics in order to deliver comprehensive infrastructure monitoring and thorough evaluations of asset criticality. Further, through sophisticated threat actor behavior assessment and automated remediation processes, RBVM is able to provide robust security coverage across the entire technology stack.
This advanced approach revolutionizes the traditional common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS) with a combination of asset importance evaluation and threat intelligence data. By incorporating environmental context analysis alongside organizational impact assessment, the system generates precise risk scores tailored to each company’s unique security landscape. Such an approach ensures that the security resources of every organization are allocated where they will have the greatest impact.
Furthermore, RBVM solutions leverage AI and machine learning capabilities to create comprehensive attack surface mapping and enable continuous monitoring of dynamic environments, including IoT devices and containers.
Another benefit RBVM provides every company with is the automated vulnerability detection and streamlined remediation workflows, resulting in enhanced visibility into potential security threats. This helps organizations not only to strengthen their overall security posture but also to optimize operational efficiency, something that traditional vulnerability management programs are missing.
Ask an IT team for their opinion about how they feel when dealing manually with the vulnerability management process. The answer you will get will always be the same; they feel overwhelmed.
With NIST’s National Vulnerability Database tracking hundreds of new vulnerabilities weekly (nearly 250,000 CVEs by spring 2024), organizations face an exhausting challenge, positioning them in a race that is impossible to win.
On the other hand, RBVM solutions have the ability to transform this vast dataset into actionable intelligence through sophisticated analysis of vulnerability exploitability and organizational impact. By prioritizing critical threats and automating remediation tasks, these systems enable companies to maintain effective security coverage despite the constantly growing volume of new potential vulnerabilities.
Efficiency is another cornerstone of RBVM because these platforms are able to significantly reduce manual workload through AI-driven automation, enabling security teams to concentrate on strategic initiatives while in the meantime addressing high-priority vulnerabilities.
Why should every IT team implement a vulnerability remediation process?
As we already mentioned, implementing effective vulnerability management is critical for every organization, no matter its size, because it establishes a systematic and effective approach to protect the company’s assets from the countless cyberthreats that are stalking around the corner to strike in the most inappropriate moment.
Advanced vulnerability management solutions are essential for maintaining a robust security posture with the main purpose of addressing system and software weaknesses before they are being exploited by cybercriminals, leading to catastrophic consequences.
It is a proven fact that enterprises which fail to properly manage vulnerabilities expose them to increased risks of data breaches, system compromises, and, of course, regulatory non-compliance. On the other hand, the process of identifying weaknesses through comprehensive vulnerability monitoring provides IT teams with the opportunity to proactively address potential issues before things escalate and get out of control. By implementing structured processes to detect vulnerabilities across networks, applications, and infrastructure, organizations can significantly reduce their attack surface.
Furthermore, professional vulnerability management solutions with automated tools can streamline the whole process of managing vulnerabilities, enabling IT teams to focus on strategic security initiatives rather than executing manually monitoring and remediation tasks. The ability to efficiently identify vulnerabilities, prioritize risks, and track remediation progress guarantees that critical systems remain protected while optimizing resource allocation.
Organizations that systematically manage vulnerabilities prove their desire to follow the cybersecurity best practices not only to maintain compliance with industry regulations but also to position themselves a step ahead of the cybercriminals’ mean attacks.
Further, embracing and implementing a robust vulnerability remediation process guarantees building resilience against the countless emerging threats that become more destructive day by day. We can definitely conclude that investing in an advanced and effective vulnerability management solution proves to be cost-effective by preventing potential security breaches, which could result in significant financial losses, reputation damage, and operational disruptions for the organization.
Action1’s Vulnerability Management Solution
Action1 reinvents patching with an infinitely scalable, highly secure, cloud-native platform configurable in 5 minutes — it just works and is always free for the first 100 endpoints, with no functional limits. Featuring unified OS and third-party patching with peer-to-peer patch distribution and real-time vulnerability assessments with no VPN needed, it enables autonomous endpoint management that preempts ransomware and security risks, all while eliminating costly routine labor. Trusted by thousands of enterprises managing millions of endpoints globally, Action1 is certified for SOC 2 and ISO 27001.
The company is founder-led by industry veterans Alex Vovk and Mike Walters, who founded Netwrix, which has grown into a multi-billion-dollar industry-leading cybersecurity company.”
