Vulnerability Assessment Overview

The evolution and a large volume of cyber-attacks scare many security teams. Understanding the security risks and current threats helps to address them. Most cyber-attacks take advantage of unknown and hidden flaws. These cyber-attacks make vulnerability assessment software the most crucial step to protect organizations.

Before we dive in, let us understand “what is vulnerability assessment.”

What is vulnerability assessment?

Vulnerability Assessment is a process of detection, classification, and prioritization of Software vulnerabilities. It is also evident that the assessments are very critical. They provide essential security data to enterprises that help them to analyze the security risks and prioritize them. Furthermore, it also aids in smart vulnerability remediation.

Now we are aware of “what is vulnerability assessment.” Most enterprises are in a dilemma about how assessment of vulnerabilities is different from management.

Some common questions asked by enterprises are,

1. Are vulnerability management and assessment related?

2. If related, how?

Let us see the basic difference between vulnerability assessment and management.

Difference between vulnerability assessment and vulnerability management

 

Vulnerability Assessment

Security vulnerability assessment system is the single point of the activity that identifies security risks. These assessments take place in an automated fashion.

We conduct different kinds of assessments of vulnerabilities at any given moment. Sometimes, they take days or weeks. The notion it bears is that assessment is an engagement that occurs once. These assessments take place in an automated fashion.

When organizations find information on any vulnerability, they immediately take action based on it. It is similar to vulnerability management solution with a slight difference. Assessment of vulnerabilities should be a continuous process. Without repeatedly assessing vulnerabilities, there is no real vulnerability management.

Vulnerability Management

Vulnerability management is a continuous process of security vulnerability assessments. They take place at regular time intervals. However, the goal of the vulnerability management system is to analyze changes after the previous assessment. You can measure progress, determine security risks, and remediate them with a vulnerability management software.

Now you know the difference between them. Let us focus on the importance of vulnerability assessment tool.

Importance of assessing vulnerabilities

Assessing vulnerabilities will make your process of vulnerability management more efficient. It is important to analyze them before fixing them. Cyber assessment of vulnerabilities becomes more critical when the vulnerabilities are complex. Hence, checking security loopholes will close the pathway for attackers.

The vulnerability assessment is a one-time process. It also helps to identify threats and risks at the earliest. To add to this, it even enables remediation to close the security gap in IT infrastructure.

It aims to keep security risks under control. Security vulnerability assessment software helps in the detection and mitigation of harmful vulnerabilities. Assessing vulnerabilities also helps prioritize and remediate them on time.

The process of effectively Assessing Vulnerabilities

• Asset inventory
  Asset inventory is the foundation of complete IT security. Without clear visibility over network scanning, it won’t be easy to protect them. Understanding the environment and its assets will aid in better security vulnerability assessment.

• Rapid scans
  Scanning is the primary process of identifying vulnerabilities. Most organizations rely on periodic scanning, which takes place once or twice a month. Periodic scanning makes the organization more vulnerable to security risks. Hence, scanning should be a daily ongoing process to manage vulnerabilities. The vulnerability scanner must scan within minutes. Fast scanners help quick vulnerability remediation after detection.

• Accurate detection
  Vulnerability detection marks the foundation for vulnerability assessment. If this detection is not accurate, the assessment data will not be precise. For accurate detection, there is a need for an effective vulnerability scanning tool. It should detect vulnerabilities without producing false positives. An inefficient vulnerability scanner drains the security team’s energy in assessing false positives.

• Predictive risk analysis
  Predicting vulnerability exploits before they show up is one way to manage vulnerabilities. You can improve security posture by predicting the probability of new exploits. You can analyze the recorded occurrence and probability of recurrence. Thus, it can estimate the nature of emerging vulnerabilities.

• Intact prioritization
  After detecting the vulnerabilities, we need to rank them based on severity levels. CVSS and risk-based vulnerability assessment will help in precise prioritization. Vulnerability Prioritization aids in remediating the high critical risks first. The combination of CVSS and risk-based assessment is even more effective.

• Instant remediation
  Detecting the vulnerabilities is on one side, and remediating is on the other. After detection of vulnerabilities, remediation of vulnerabilities will reduce potential attacks. Most organizations lag in remediating vulnerabilities on time and going for an integrated vulnerability and patch management solution with help here.

Introduction to Vulnerability Assessment Tools

Cyber vulnerability assessment tools find security threats across systems in enterprises. In addition, these assessment tools prevent unauthorized access to the systems from attackers. These Vulnerability assessment tools scan the entire organization network for weaknesses and quickly start the remediation process. Hence, these tools aid in effective vulnerability management.

How to find the best tool to assess vulnerabilities?

Vulnerability Assessment with SanerNow

Vulnerability assessment should always be the quickest stage of your program. To make sure, you need the best vulnerability assessment software. Assessing vulnerabilities with manual research makes security teams commit errors during the assessment.

Your attack surface will suffer the consequences due to errors. The ideal cyber vulnerability assessment tool is an all-rounder in all crucial functions.

Let us find out how SanerNow makes all the above a simple process.

• Rapid scanning techniques
  Vulnerability scans determine the efficacy of assessing vulnerabilities. The faster and more accurate it is, the better the assessment results. Make sure that you opt for a vulnerability assessment tool that runs the fastest vulnerability scans. SanerNow provides the industry’s fastest scanning in less than five minutes. SanerNow intelligence augmented, and efficient scanning algorithm makes scanning rapid. In this time frame, you will be able to scan any number of devices with SanerNow. In addition, you can also choose to schedule and automate these scans.

• 

                                                                   

• Large and Extensive database
  The success of a scanner lies in the accuracy of detection. A vulnerability scanner that gives false positives will let down your security program. For accurate detection, you must integrate your scanner with a large vulnerability database. The database must hold the most number of security checks, and it should be up-to-date.

 

• 

SanerNow leverages its home-grown world’s largest vulnerability database. The database consists of around 175,000+ security checks. SanerNow’s vulnerability intelligence feed is regularly updated with the latest vulnerability details. The large database prevents false positives and makes vulnerability detection accurate.

• Wide asset coverage
  Broader security vulnerability assessment needs a wide coverage of vulnerabilities in the database. Some Vulnerability Assessment Tools support only one or a few platforms like Windows or Linux. And some tools do not support all devices in the network. In addition, without coverage to nook and corner in your network, you cannot prevent exploits. Make sure that you go for a scanner that supports all devices. SanerNow vulnerability management supports all IP-enabled devices in the network. It also supports all operating systems like Windows, MAC, and Linux. Thus, no device or operating system can escape SanerNow’s eyes.

• Automatic and predictive prioritization
  Prioritization is an important step while assessing vulnerabilities. It will help you to prioritize the vulnerabilities based on their severity level. This method will tell you what to remediate first. Besides, this will save you from spending your efforts on less critical vulnerabilities.

• 

• SanerNow innately prioritizes the vulnerabilities based on their severity range. It depends on CVSS scores and risk-based vulnerability management techniques that will help to rank vulnerabilities. With intact prioritization results from SanerNow, you can smartly plan your vulnerability remediation.

• Integrated patch module
  Without remediation, you have not won the battle of security vulnerability assessment. The remediation has to be fast enough to prevent security gaps. Opt for an integrated patch management solution to remediate vulnerabilities quickly.

• 

• SanerNow provides an integrated vulnerability and patch management solution. With SanerNow, you can execute all steps from scanning to remediation from one place. SanerNow supports patch remediation for all OSs like Windows, MAC, and Linux. In addition to this, it also supports patches for 450+ third-party vulnerabilities.

• Customizable reports
  Reports help in smart security vulnerability assessment and evaluation. Insightful reports are important to assess the whole process and the vulnerability details. Hard-to-read big reports are not easy to understand. Pick a tool that provides good reports.

• 

• In your search for the best vulnerability assessment tools, SanerNow will be the best fit to assess and manage your network vulnerabilities. If you have not seen SanerNow in action yet, schedule a demo now.

• Provides customizable and insightful reports. You can quickly assess the vulnerability management process with these reports. Also, pre-built reports are available in SanerNow for assessment. You can also customize the reports according to your requirements. These reports can be automated and scheduled. Besides, you can configure and receive these reports in your mailbox.

In this article, we saw in detail “What is vulnerability assessment”. With SanerNow manage vulnerabilities at ease. Schedule a demo to see SanerNow in action