Overcoming the Challenges of Vulnerability Management

Cyberattacks are on the rise!

More than 60% of companies have been under cyber-attack. The initial cause of all these attacks are vulnerabilities, and there is a huge gap in the vulnerability management across organizations. This gap can be minimized by utilizing a vulnerability management tool.

But where are organizations going wrong in terms of vulnerability management? Or what challenges are organizations facing with their current set-up of vulnerability management ?

1. Siloed tools for vulnerability management: Organizations tend to use multiple tools for different vulnerability management steps. Integrating the results of all these tools is very hectic and tiresome.
2. Lack of visibility over IT assets: The initial step of every organization is to have proper visibility of all the assets. Even today, IT teams choose spreadsheets to manage assets, which leads to many manual errors and is inadequate.
3. Prioritization of vulnerabilities: There are times when you encounter a massive pile of vulnerabilities; patching them without knowing the risk they pose to the organization is not practical.Many organizations skip the part of prioritizing vulnerabilities after identifying vulnerabilities and jump straight to remediation. It leads to IT security teams focusing on less critical ones first rather than the critical vulnerability that would need immediate attention. These problems can be prevented by utilizing a vulnerability management software.
4. Irregular vulnerability scans: Organizations tend to scan for vulnerabilities in an irregular period of time. It can be during an audit or once a month/year. But what if a critical vulnerability is identified after your scans?
5. Outdated methods for vulnerability management: Manually managing vulnerabilities takes much time and manual effort. It need not only be manual methods, but organizations would have also followed the traditional vulnerability management method.The traditional way of managing vulnerabilities includes not detecting vulnerabilities beyond CVEs, lack of integration, choosing multiple tools, manual and irregular scans, and more. All these things could lead your organization wide open to cyberattacks.
6. Delayed remediation: It is vital to remediate vulnerabilities instantly. Due to a lack of patch management software, attackers are using sophisticated ways to invade your organization’s security; keeping vulnerabilities for a long time without remediating them would only act as a loophole for attacks.
7. Overwhelming reports: Reports are essential in analyzing the vulnerability management process. If reports are not accurate and complex to read, it will be challenging to know the overall performance of vulnerability management.

Now that you know the challenges of vulnerability management. A general question would pop into your mind: “Are there any methods to overcome these challenges?”

1. Complete 360-degree visibility: To keep an organization secure against attacks, you should clearly understand the assets present in your organization. Run regular IT asset scans and ensure that information on all your assets is maintained in a database, even though you have not used them.
2. Prioritize vulnerabilities: Prioritization is essential in the vulnerability management process. Categorize the vulnerability with a vulnerability management software, based on their risk levels, such as critical, high, and low levels.This will help you in knowing which vulnerabilities should be remediated first. It is also always advised to remediate the most critical ones first!
3. Avoid using multiple tools: Choose one tool to do the whole vulnerability management process, from identifying vulnerabilities to instantly remediating them. It is easier and can give you a unified view of your organization’s security posture.
4. Continuous monitoring and scanning: People can never know when someone might exploit the vulnerability. Continuously scan and monitor your infrastructure to identify and remediate vulnerability before it becomes a huge threat.
5. Automated vulnerability management: Completely automate your vulnerability management process to provide accurate results, save time, and decrease manual errors.
6. Instant remediation: After detecting and assessing vulnerabilities, remediate them with a patch management tool as soon as possible to avoid any loopholes.
7. Insightful reports: Reports should be clear and easily understandable.

As the saying goes, “Every Problem has a Solution.” Vulnerability management challenges are not something that cannot be eliminated; with the right tool, you can achieve perfect vulnerability management that is both accurate and powerful.