Modern IT Security Teams’ Inevitable Need for Advanced Vulnerability Management

Traditional vulnerability management programs are outdated, with little to no innovation in the last two decades. Today’s dynamic IT environment demands an advanced vulnerability management program to deal with the complex attack surface and curb security risks.

We have read enough and more news in recent times on the surge in cyberattacks. It is crystal clear that attackers are not leaving out even the tiniest of security loopholes and are coming up with smarter ways to invade our IT network. Vulnerability management is the most crucial cyber defense process and has remained nearly the same over the last two decades. IT security teams are struggling to reduce the risk exposure and prevent cyberattacks because of the lack of this innovation. Today’s modern attack surface needs a next-gen, advanced vulnerability management approach to deal with the complex, ever-evolving attack surfaces and to curb cyberattacks.

Why Conventional Vulnerability Management is not the Best-fit for Modern Security Landscape

• Vulnerabilities beyond CVEs are overlooked. In the traditional vulnerability management process, the definition of a vulnerability is straightforward, “A CVE or a Software Vulnerability.” CVEs are important to be managed; however, it is not sufficient to deal with the complex attack surface. Numerous security risks exist like a poorly configured setting, asset exposures, deviation in security controls, missing security patches, and security posture anomalies. These security risks present the same threat as software vulnerabilities and must be managed accordingly
• Lack of integrated remediation controls. Most of the traditional vulnerability management tools in the market do not come with integrated patching to remediate vulnerabilities. This puts IT security teams at the mercy of siloed solutions, leaving them to wonder which tool will provide remediation. With all this chaos, the vulnerabilities are left to prevail in the network, leaving easy access for attackers to exploit.
• Siloed Interfaces and Multiple-point Solutions Approach. Vulnerability management is not a one-step process. Conventional vulnerability management solutions rely on multiple tools to execute each step, making it hard for IT security teams. This method is also time-consuming and leaves huge security gaps between each step. It also makes it tedious to correlate and assess the vulnerability and mitigate in one place, making it challenging to strategize and improve the whole process.
• Manual Methods and Repetitive Processes. Traditional Vulnerability management tools are still not fully automated. They rely on manual methods, making the whole process strenuous. Manual methods inhibit the continuity of vulnerability management in a network as IT security teams tend to make the process periodic due to the complexities involved. Performing vulnerability assessment weekly or monthly is not going to be the best solution anymore.

Advanced Vulnerability Management: What it is and How it Adds a New Spin to the Process?

Advanced Vulnerability Management provides a broader approach to vulnerabilities and addresses different security risks in the IT vulnerability landscape. It manages a wide array of security risks, including software vulnerabilities, asset exposure, missing patches, misconfigurations, deviation in security controls, and security posture anomalies from a single place. In short, it reinvents vulnerability management, where everything right from detection to remediation of vulnerabilities is automatically performed from a centralized console.

Top Reasons to Adopt Advanced Vulnerability Management

• Manage Diverse Security Risks. Advanced Vulnerability Management goes beyond traditional vulnerability management practices and looks at vulnerabilities beyond CVEs. Along with software vulnerabilities, you will get to address various security risk exposures in your network, increasing the overall efficacy of your vulnerability management program.
• Eliminate Attack Surface to a Larger Extent. Integrated remediation is a key strength of advanced vulnerability management. With remediation controls available in the same console, you can easily mitigate the vulnerabilities on time and reduce the attack surface to a greater extent.
• Improve Operational Efficiency. By taking the advanced vulnerability management route, you get to evict the operational challenges of traditional practices. With an integrated approach to managing vulnerabilities and risks, and end-to-end automation, the complexities and chaos of relying on swivel chair interfaces and manual methods are eliminated. You can easily make vulnerability management continuous and eliminate the security gaps between each step from a single centralized console.
• Align with Regulatory Compliance Goals. Advanced vulnerability management addresses multiple risks, including IT asset exposures, vulnerabilities, patches, and misconfigurations. Managing these security risks is also a part of regulatory compliance benchmarks such as HIPAA, PCI, ISO, NIST, and more. Hence, you can easily comply with these industry security benchmarks by implementing advanced vulnerability management.
• Strengthen the Security Posture and Lay a Solid Cyberattack Prevention Foundation. When we look at any cyber security framework, prevention comes first before detection, response, and recovery. If we focus our efforts on prevention, we can easily safeguard our network from numerous attacks. Advanced vulnerability management will serve as a crucial cyberattack prevention method and tightens the overall security of a network.

The post-pandemic era brought numerous challenges to the digital landscape, and no doubt the attack surface has widened massively. The constant changes in the IT environment are also in favor of attackers, where IT security teams are still struggling to cope. IT security teams need to reinvent the existing vulnerability management process to deal with the rising risks and secure our dynamic IT environment. Advanced Vulnerability Management with a unified approach, integrated remediation, end-to-end automation, and a broader approach to vulnerabilities and risks will level up your vulnerability management game, enabling you to keep attacks at bay.