Vulnerability Management: What You Need to Know Now

Your organization’s web-facing infrastructure is under constant threat from potential cyberattacks.  A holistic approach to security to mitigate risks and threats, with a vulnerability management program ensures a secure and stable platform.

When you engage a reputable managed cloud company, their experienced cybersecurity professionals understand the necessity of continuously highlighting and addressing key vulnerabilities and risk factors by regularly conducting measures with thorough and ongoing vulnerability management. 

To help you get up to speed, here’s a rundown on what vulnerability management is and why it’s essential to your comprehensive cloud security strategy. 

What is Vulnerability Management?

Vulnerability management is a vital aspect of any effective cloud security program; it’s required to prioritize possible threats and minimize the reach of cyberattacks. The process includes identifying security vulnerabilities in systems and software, then evaluating, treating and reporting on those security vulnerabilities.

Vulnerabilities are what allow attackers to penetrate or compromise your organization’s cloud infrastructure, which is why vulnerability management must be continuous to account for constant changes, updates and increased complexity.

An effective vulnerability management program stays ahead of current exploits to ensure your business is protected. You shouldn’t have to struggle to keep up with changes, reduce your exposure or stay on track with your security program.

Vulnerability Management Programs: What’s Included?

An effective vulnerability management program includes a comprehensive set of features designed to protect your organization’s technical infrastructure, systems, software and data, including:

• Automated vulnerability scanning on target IP addresses to ensure that the scan happens on a regular cadence without any manual intervention.
• Mimicking attacker behavior, as applying similar tactics to those attackers employ to breach your systems can level the playing field to help proactively prepare for potential attacks.
• Offering hybrid cloud coverage for private clouds, public clouds and customer on-premise environments.
• Providing reports and insights, such as baseline security scanning, automated reporting on a regular basis, advanced assessments, recommendations by security analysts and regular vulnerability notices.
• Web Application Scanning (WAS) to complement the baseline IP-based scans, with custom scripting and scanning of web applications in search of SQL injection attacks, cross-site scripting, credential stuffing and other threats.
• Doing penetration testing, which is a simulated cyberattack against your IT environment to check for any vulnerabilities that can be exploited, utilizing a holistic approach that includes both automated and manual processes. Web penetration testing typically involves attempting to breach servers and other application systems, looking for places that are susceptible to attacks to offer visibility into how a breach might occur and how you can protect against it.

A poorly run vulnerability management program undermines your organization’s cybersecurity, as vulnerability management should be at the foundation of your infrastructure.

At Carbon60, we take a comprehensive approach to vulnerability management to fend off cyberattacks and progressively improve threat intelligence by leveraging industry leader Qualys along with proven processes and tools developed based on years of experience in the field. 

Why Prioritize Vulnerability Management?

A well-run vulnerability management program helps your organization proactively assess the risks to your assets while maintaining compliance and providing ongoing due diligence. 

The key benefits of effective vulnerability management include:

• Continuous identification, as automated scans take the guesswork out of staying on top of an immense volume of threats that can impact your business.
• Prioritization of threats, as not all security threats pose the same risk. With regular vulnerability reports and insight, you can more easily identify critical issues that need immediate remediation and address other threats once the most high-risk threats are mitigated.
• Patch validation, as web application scanning will act as a secondary check to ensure your internal team or managed cloud provider is executing on the patches for your systems.
• Compliance assurance, as comprehensive vulnerability management processes and audits can help you address your compliance management program that relates to your own policies.
• Cybersecurity expertise, as prioritizing vulnerability management as part of your security program means having the right support team in place to provide guidance and ensure that your organization can take action to resolve security issues head-on.

The key is to identify vulnerabilities early and often before the impact becomes severe.

Managing Vulnerability in the Cloud

Identifying and prioritizing threats can be a challenge, but making sure your business is protected is a must. Effective vulnerability management allows you to stay ahead of current exploits, no matter the rising volume of threats in an increasingly complex environment. 

Carbon60 uses a comprehensive approach to improve your threat intelligence and fend off attacks. We rely on Qualys and other proprietary tools and processes to understand potential threats before they can impact your systems. 

If you’re struggling to keep up, Vulnerability Management Services by Carbon60 can help to reduce your exposure and help you implement a repeatable and reliable approach for your security program.

To find out more about Carbon60’s Vulnerability Management Programs, contact us.

Carbon60 accelerates companies with their cloud journey with our hybrid IT services. We provide cloud assessment, migration, 24/7 SOC2 compliant managed operations and security services combined with cloud adoption, app modernization and data insights professional services to organizations across several industries. Our white-glove service is delivered by our certified experts using multiple clouds including AWS, Azure, Google and our VMware clouds across Canada.