This month, SC Labs revisited the vulnerability management
space and reviewed a handful of solutions. Vulnerability management tools have
become an important aspect of the security process. Through scanning an
environment and penetration testing, they reveal where vulnerabilities exist
and what could potentially be the results of their exploitation. Having one of
these products in your arsenal will aid in eliminating blind spots and ensuring
other security measures are adequately configured to provide the protection you
expect.As are many cybersecurity products, some of these tools are
incorporating machine learning in the form of predictive modeling to give
visibility into vulnerabilities that not only have known and unknown threats
and exploitations, but also vulnerabilities with no currently known
exploitations.Vulnerability management tools also take into consideration
specific business practices and security needs. They score vulnerabilities
based on threat intelligence and other data leveraged from outside of the
client realm. These vulnerability risk scores are analyzed further and
bolstered with data in the form of asset weights so you can be sure the
information you are receiving is based on your specific organization and not a
generalized, umbrella security report.
With the rapid advancements and breakneck pace for all
things cybersecurity, vulnerability management tools are becoming all the more
necessary to stay ahead of ever-changing threats as is making sure your other
security tools are adequately configured and functioning. The cost of adding
these tools is worth the peace of mind knowing your security posture is not
hiding any sinister, exploitable vulnerabilities and that you know exactly
where your blind spots are.Product Group Opener Vulnerability management tools are an often-overlooked
basics in an organization’s security posture. The main takeaway after reviewing
this month’s set of products is that the most effective way to ensure your
organization is putting the focus where it is needed to keep up with an
expanding and changing threat landscape is to implement a vulnerability
management program. A well-run program will bring critical issues to your
attention and give you an idea of the type of remediation that will have the
most impact.These tools take a lot of the guesswork out of the process.
While spotting a vulnerability is easy after a breach, given the expansiveness
of today’s threats, organizations need to know about potentially exploitable
vulnerabilities before an incident occurs. These vulnerability management tools
help you determine whether you need role-based access, agent-based scanning
options or remediation assistance for quick patching while also highlighting
any compliance or regulatory requirements that aren’t met.The typical network design has changed over the years and
vulnerability management tools have been able to keep pace. They include
compliance reporting, cloud scanning, remote scanners, machine learning
predictive algorithms and agent-based tools to help protect an organization
from zero-day attacks as well as keep up with the known and unknown threats.With exploits growing in sophistication and reachability, we
were happy to see many products moving toward encompassing artificial
intelligence and machine learning algorithms that can predict where an
organization is vulnerable and eliminate blind spots while heavily ensuring
scalability for all environments. Many of the products we looked at also
support a fair level of customizability, so vulnerability ratings are weighted
to an organization’s assets and business practices to ensure protection where
it matters most. Just as with last year’s vulnerability management solutions
API integration is the growing and nearly consistent among the tools reviewed.As we’ve noted, vulnerability management should be a
significant part of your organization’s security program. You cannot protect
your assets if you are unaware of your vulnerabilities and where they are.
Security measures put in place are worth nothing if they are put where your
weaknesses are. Vulnerability management tools serve to complement the measures
you already have in place by ensuring they are working as desired and
adequately configured to cover you where you are vulnerable. You should be able
to kickoff scans/tests from other tools and ingest the results into your
ticketing system or other important toolsets. While scanning is never enough, by starting with the
knowledge of where your vulnerabilities exist, you can begin to understand the
potential implications of those vulnerabilities should they be exploited. We
always recommend conducting independent security testing (e.g. penetration
testing) on your environment. However, some of the tools we reviewed here have
some testing capabilities that are as good (if not better) than some automatic
tests that are out there, including a quick and easy way to export the data
into an easily digestible report. Many reports are customizable to create
vulnerability views to meet the criteria of anyone and everyone. Some products
include a seamless transition between vulnerability data, the resulting report
and suggested fixes for those vulnerabilities to ensure you get the most out of
security measures at the least manual work cost. They takes the guesswork and
overhead out of remediation and expedite the process so you can eliminate as
many vulnerabilities in your environment as quickly as possible.Overall, these tools seemingly are advancing and adapting
with the security landscape effortlessly. They help to harden an organization’s
security posture with penetration testing, scheduled and automated scans, and
digestible reports – in some cases, even taking vulnerability management
further into the realm of prediction with or without the existence of known and
unknown exploits. And that promises to put you a step ahead of risk. Pick of the Litter BeyondTrust Enterprise Vulnerability Management is SC Labs Best Buy for combining its modular price structure that can be tailored to any size environment with an optional hardware appliance also offered at a competitive price.SAINT Security Suite has grown into a feature-rich product over the past year, including new practical integrations and a more than reasonable price point. For that, SAINT Security Suite takes the SC Labs Recommended product of the month spot.Pick of the Litter by Matthew HrebenJune 2019 products reviews
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