Conducting a vulnerability assessment involves scanning your IT infrastructure to identify potential vulnerabilities. This can be done manually or with automated tools, which rely on databases, vendor vulnerability announcements, and threat intelligence feeds.
Vulnerability assessments can prevent hacking incidents that cost companies money, cause disruptions to operations, and damage a company’s reputation. They also avoid breaches that expose confidential business data to cyber attackers.
Define the Scope of the Assessment
A vulnerability assessment helps organizations identify vulnerabilities before attackers find and exploit them. Vulnerabilities are holes in hardware or software that attackers can use to compromise systems and gain access to data or information. They are often caused by programming mistakes, known as bugs or misconfigurations, which can be fixed or mitigated to improve operational security.
To conduct a vulnerability assessment effectively, it is crucial to follow certain essential steps. It is essential to ensure that all the necessary steps of a vulnerability assessment are carried out meticulously to identify and address potential vulnerabilities in the system. The first step in preparing for a vulnerability assessment is to define the scope of the evaluation, including the systems and networks that will be scanned and assessed. It is also important to determine what data or systems are critical to the business and whether they are accessible by external users. This helps to ensure that the most serious vulnerabilities are identified and prioritized for remediation.
It is also important to consider whether existing protections can address any vulnerabilities identified by the scan. For example, an exposure in infrastructure protected by application firewalls and other preventive technologies may be less of a priority to address as a vulnerability in a non-protected system.
Identify the Vulnerabilities to be Assessed
While preparing for a vulnerability assessment, the team must identify desired business outcomes. These goals can be as broad as prioritizing risks, achieving compliance, or more focused on preventing data breaches or reducing recovery time.
The team must also decide what to assess, which assets to scan, and what to look for in those assets. This phase often involves leveraging third-party vulnerability assessment tools and support from a cybersecurity services provider. Still, it may also involve manual scanning and research to ensure the right vulnerabilities are scanned (University of North Dakota).
The next step is to identify vulnerabilities that require further analysis or remediation. This may include using a vulnerability rating system to determine the severity of each discovered flaw. The final result of this phase is a report that details the vulnerabilities found and provides recommendations for fixing them. This can include technical jargon that is directed to the security and IT teams who will be performing the remediation. Still, it should also contain visualizations and explanations that are easier for less technical business leaders to understand.
Identify the Assessment Methodology
Even the most secure IT infrastructure has one or more security vulnerabilities. Vulnerability assessments uncover these threats and help IT teams resolve them to prevent successful cyber attacks.
Vulnerabilities exist on each computer and can be exploited to access the network and steal sensitive data. They can also damage the integrity of an information system, destabilize operations and cost a company money. By regularly performing vulnerability assessments and resolving the identified threats, companies can reduce their risk of a data breach and protect their reputations.
A comprehensive vulnerability assessment includes scanning systems and applications to find vulnerabilities attackers can exploit. This scan can be automated or manual and requires the assistance of a third-party tool or service provider to detect vulnerabilities and classify them as either a threat or non-threat. Identifying the methodology used to ensure the assessment process is consistent and complete is important. This helps minimize the possibility that a significant vulnerability will be missed. It also provides a framework for prioritizing vulnerabilities to immediately address the most critical ones.
Determine the Level of Access to be Granted
Vulnerability assessments help close security gaps that cybercriminals use to exploit applications, systems and data. They also are a vital part of the system hardening process, which involves decreasing the number of attack points by identifying and addressing vulnerabilities in software, hardware, servers and database systems.
Performing a vulnerability assessment can be a complex task, and the assessment team must have access to all of the information required to complete the job. The best way to do this is for the assessment team to view all results and data within the unified report.
To grant this level of access, go to the Manage user access flyout pane on the assessment details page and select the appropriate tab: Readers, Assessors or Contributors. Then, locate the users needing access and check the circle next to their name.
CISOs and other IT and leadership executives must analyze the most value from vulnerability assessments with business risk in mind to get the most value from vulnerability assessments. Doing so will enable them to spend their security budget wisely and strengthen their cybersecurity and compliance postures.
Perform the Assessment
It’s critical to understand that vulnerability assessments are a continuous process – and not merely a tool to be used to pursue compliance. A continuous vulnerability assessment analyzed with business risk in mind provides valuable insights into the threat landscape. It helps CISOs and other IT and security leadership make informed decisions about using their organizations’ security budgets.
Vulnerability assessments are the foundation for a vulnerability management program, helping to identify and prioritize vulnerabilities to be remedied. Because cyberattacks continuously search for weaknesses that can be exploited to breach applications, systems and data, organizations need to assess their environments constantly, implementing a patching process and a vulnerability management program in the wake of these assessments.
Performing a vulnerability assessment involves scanning the designated assets in an organization’s IT infrastructure using a scanning tool, often accompanied by a manual penetration test to validate results and reduce false positives. A network-based scan identifies vulnerable systems connected to the organization’s wired and wireless networks, while host-based scanners assess individual servers within the IT environment. Finally, an application scan evaluates Web applications to search for known software vulnerabilities and weaknesses.