By Caesar Tonkin, Managing Director, Armata Cyber Security
The volume and complexity of vulnerabilities that cybersecurity teams must guard against is continuing to rise, due to factors such as an expanding attack surface that includes the Cloud, growing numbers of software applications, and the increasing sophistication of cyber threats, which are now able to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into their functionality.
This means that safeguarding sensitive information and critical systems against cyber threats is more challenging than ever as the digital landscape continues to evolve – it’s no exaggeration to say that vulnerability management remains a moving target.
A Constantly Evolving Threat Landscape
In recent months, new vulnerabilities that have come to light have included the following: the Apple Shortcuts vulnerability, which could allow attackers to bypass Apple’s framework governing access to sensitive user information and system resources; the ‘SlashandGrab ScreenConnect’ Vulnerability, an authentication bypass vulnerability which could allow an attacker to create a new account that has administrator privileges; and the Ivanti VPN Vulnerability, a high-severity vulnerability with the potential to affect enterprise VPN and network access products.
All these vulnerabilities underscore the importance of organisations being required to take action to ensure that they have top-class vulnerability management practices in place.
According to Qualys, a leading provider of information security and compliance Cloud solutions: “On average, weaponised vulnerabilities are patched within 30.6 days yet only patched an average of 57.7% of the time. These same vulnerabilities are weaponised by attackers in 19.5 days on average. This means that attackers have 11.1 days of exploitation opportunities before organisations begin patching.”
This naturally raises concerns about how organisations can work to reduce their risk exposure effectively.
Introducing the Armata Vulnerability Management Service
Many organisations face resource constraints in managing their own cybersecurity, including limited budgets and personnel shortages, making it difficult to keep pace with the constant stream of vulnerabilities – never mind being able to effectively allocate resources to mitigate them.
Against this background, Armata Cyber Security is proud to offer the Armata Vulnerability Management Service.
We detect, assess and mitigate potential security weaknesses in a customer’s critical operating platforms, and their business and network systems.
We proactively manage exploitable vulnerabilities and security misconfigurations which, if not mitigated, could be compromised by threat actors, and thereby cause the customer to experience material harm.
What Business Risks Should Be Managed?
Vulnerability management can help to prevent damage to a company’s reputation and bottom line by preventing data breaches and other security incidents. In addition, vulnerability management can improve compliance with various security standards and regulations.
When considering the issue of vulnerability management, the following questions should be considered:
- Does your organisation automatically, and in real time, detect exploitable vulnerabilities of your critical systems?
- Does your organisation increase visibility and extend vulnerability management and proactive security to internal and external assets, asset groups, domains, subdomains and software?
- Does your organisation automatically prioritise critical assets, which are at high to moderate risk, to be remediated?
- Have threat actors exploited unpatched vulnerabilities of your critical systems?
- Does your organisation link risk-based vulnerabilities to real-time threat indicators such as ransomware, phishing and external attacks on internet facing systems and data exfiltration?
Benefits Provided by Armata Cyber Security
Following a risk-based approach to vulnerability management involves prioritising vulnerabilities based on their potential impact on the organisation’s assets, operations and strategic objectives.
Based on tiered service levels, organisations can benefit from our Vulnerability Management Service as follows:
- Detect exploitable vulnerabilities and security misconfigurations through continuous vulnerability and compliance scans of your key asset.
- Link threat intelligence feeds of indicators of compromise into the vulnerabilities detected and remediation plan.
- Undertake risk-based prioritisation factoring in the criticality of your assets, the risk score assigned to each vulnerability, and the potential impact of malware that could exploit these vulnerabilities.
- Prepare a Remediation Plan and tracking to address your identified vulnerabilities. This includes applying security patches, updating configurations, or implementing workarounds.
- Provide dashboard and reporting for your stakeholders to ensure visibility, transparency and effective risk-based decision-making.
In Conclusion
Vulnerability management is an ongoing, proactive process, designed to protect your computer systems, networks and enterprise applications from cyberattacks and data breaches by continuously identifying and addressing security vulnerabilities.
At Armata Cyber Security, we will gladly set up a workshop with you to confirm your vulnerability management needs, during which our cybersecurity experts will showcase real-world vulnerability management.
For more information, please contact sales@armata.co.za.