Vulnerability assessment is a vital cybersecurity process that helps you identify threats and close gaps in security. To make the most of this process, you must define desirable outcomes in advance, such as reducing vulnerabilities and risk levels or avoiding data breaches and downtime.
Keeping up with vulnerability assessments prevents unpatched software and misconfigured systems from becoming a cyberattack entry point. Understanding how vulnerability assessment tools work is the best way to do this.
What is a Vulnerability Assessment Tool?
Vulnerability assessment tools enable organizations to scan their networks for vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit. They can also help identify the root cause of the exposure and provide recommendations on how to fix it. Organizations must perform regular security vulnerability assessments and incorporate them into their ongoing risk management operations.
Identifying and mitigating vulnerabilities can prevent data breaches and cyber-attacks. Threat actors constantly look for holes in software and hardware components to breach applications, systems, and networks. A comprehensive vulnerability assessment tool coupled with a vulnerability management program can detect these weaknesses and protect against them.
There are many types of vulnerability assessment tools, with different capabilities depending on the type of system being scanned. For example, host scanners and network vulnerability assessment tools can detect vulnerabilities in servers, operating systems, and other devices on private and public networks. These tools can also help to detect misconfigurations and rogue databases containing sensitive user information.
There are dedicated application and database vulnerability assessment tools for more targeted scanning. These include DAST (dynamic analysis of source code) and SAST (static source code analysis). Both can identify various vulnerabilities, including buffer overflows and SQL injections. There are also specialized tools for performing penetration testing, which helps understand how hackers exploit vulnerabilities to access an organization’s systems. Types of Vulnerabilities
Vulnerability assessment tools can scan various IT assets, including networks, computer systems and applications. They identify, classify and prioritize vulnerabilities that could lead to cyber threats or risks. They may use automated testing tools and show the results in a report that management can use to decide how to deal with these weaknesses.
A vulnerability assessment is part of a larger information security risk management model called continuous threat exposure management (CTEM). These types of tools are vital for detecting vulnerabilities in the IT infrastructure before cybercriminals can exploit them. This way, organizations can implement mitigation techniques to minimize the chances of a breach and reduce their overall risk.
There are many different types of vulnerability assessment tools on the market. Choose one that meets your organization’s needs and provides many security features. For example, some of the best tools allow you to create custom groups so that high-availability servers can be isolated from less critical vulnerabilities, which prevents downtime. Others also allow you to decline patches that aren’t ready for production environments to avoid issues caused by rushed updates. Some tools can even scan APIs to help ensure that they’re secure. This can protect against privilege escalation attacks, which occur when hackers access sensitive data and services. You can learn more about vulnerability assessments through Fortinet’s article on common vulnerabilities.
Detecting Vulnerabilities
Vulnerability assessment tools scan systems for weaknesses that cybercriminals might exploit to breach applications, systems and network devices. The process helps organizations reduce the risk of data breaches and improve their overall security posture.
To maximize the value of vulnerability assessments, teams must define desirable outcomes before starting any testing. Depending on the organization, these include prioritizing risks, achieving compliance, preventing data breaches and reducing recovery time.
As part of the process, teams should determine which vulnerabilities to focus on by assessing their impact and likelihood of being exploited by cybercriminals. This is based on the vulnerability severity ranking provided by the tool and Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) ratings.
A vulnerability assessment is only as valuable as the information it provides, so creating detailed reports alongside each scan can help ensure that all findings are captured and used to take action. Creating these comprehensive accounts will also make it easier to spot patterns and identify any false positives that might arise.
Vulnerability assessment tools are often configured to detect specific vulnerabilities, such as wireless network scans that look for attack points within the company’s infrastructure or validate that a company’s wireless networks are securely configured. Other scanners may focus on applications or database servers to detect known software vulnerabilities and misconfigurations that might allow attacks like SQL injection.
Remediation
Once a vulnerability assessment scan has been performed, it is vital to create a detailed report. This document should describe the discovered vulnerabilities, their risk levels, and the mitigation techniques to address them. It should also explain how the vulnerabilities were found and highlight gaps between the results and an organization’s system baseline.
A well-written and comprehensive report is essential for communicating issues with other teams within an organization, including additional security professionals and non-technical business leaders. The information should be readable by people with technical skills, but it should also contain visualizations and explanations that are easy for less technical stakeholders to understand.
In addition to reporting on the discovered vulnerabilities, the vulnerability assessment should help organizations prioritize these issues for remediation. This should be done using a risk-based approach, as not all vulnerabilities are equal regarding their impact on an organization’s security posture. This is important because there are typically limited resources available for remediation, and it is critical to focus on the most significant threats first.
Vulnerability assessments can help identify weaknesses that cybercriminals can exploit to access an organization’s systems, networks, and data. They can also detect and mitigate phishing and web application attacks.