How a Healthy Vulnerability Management Program Can Improve Your Cyber Hygiene

Vulnerability Management as a Service (VMaaS) is a security program that requires continuous and proactive processes to mitigate vulnerabilities that bad actors may take advantage of to infiltrate a system. The overall goal of VMaaS is to reduce an organization’s risk exposure and understand what in a company’s system puts them at risk of a cyberattack before one occurs. A strong VMaaS program is incredibly important, but it can be a challenging process for your IT department to handle alone.

Keep reading to learn more about how Vulnerability Management works and tips on how to properly maintain this crucial security program.

How does Vulnerability Management work?

The first step in Vulnerability Management is to detect vulnerabilities through scanning and testing. This is accomplished by scanning all Workstations, Servers, and other assets with a Vulnerability Scanning tool designed to catch known and new vulnerabilities in systems and networks. Common vulnerabilities that are typically identified from this scanning include:

1.   Missed updates in systems and software

2.   Zero Day vulnerability exploits

3.   System misconfigurations or configuration gaps

4.   Changes in vendor or community security standards

The second step is to prioritize the vulnerabilities identified to plan for remediations. It’s important to determine which issues maybe most impactful to your business and therefore most important to fix. Entara’s team utilizes a risk-based approach, utilizing a combination of Enhanced Predictive Scoring System (EPSS) and Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) 3.0. This facilitates a comprehensive understanding of the threat landscape within your environment, allowing for the identification and prioritization of the most impactful remediation strategies. During this process, it is crucial to have a tracking system in place to effectively monitor the efforts of your team and prioritize tasks.

After the vulnerabilities have been prioritized, the next step is to delegate there mediation efforts to the appropriate experts, to effectively mitigate risks that your business may face. It can be a time-consuming task for your team to remediate and manage these vulnerabilities, along with all the other day-to-day tasks that they are responsible for.

The final step of a healthy VM program, but one of the most important steps, is continuous scanning and monitoring.It’s crucial to not only monitor the progress of vulnerability remediations, but also be on the lookout for new vulnerabilities that could potentially jeopardize your business. Vulnerabilities can be discovered and exploited by attackers very quickly, thus constant monitoring of your vulnerability landscape is crucial to staying on top of your organization’s risk. Vulnerability Management is a continuous process that requires constant identification of vulnerabilities, prioritization of remediations, and consistent updates to remediation action plans to ensure you get the most out of your VM program.

Manage Your Organization’s Cyber Hygiene with Entara

Entara sets the standard as the world’s first eXtended Service Provider (XSP). We deliver exceptional, security-first IT solutions for our clients, including managed IT and security services and incident response services. Through over 20 years of experience, we are knowledgeable about both common and up and coming risks that could impact your organization. If you are interested in learning more about Entara’s VulnerabilityManagement as a Service, or VMaaS, reach out to our team at XSP@entaracorp.com to learn more.