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Vulnerability assessment software continuously tracks down vulnerabilities in OSs and applications, assesses their risk level, and helps in remediation prioritization of urgent and impactful issues to proactively avoid breaches.
Vulnerabilities have exploded in recent years. Roughly speaking, a new vulnerability springs up every six minutes. Hypothetically, even if you have sufficient resources to deal with the deluge of vulnerabilities, another factor to contend with is the varying risk they pose. Some present an immediate risk to your enterprise security and are most likely to topple your business.
Fixing non-critical issues while serious vulnerabilities remain exposed can be the difference between falling victim to an attack or not. This is why having a vulnerability assessment solution that informs you about vulnerabilities and discloses their urgency and potential impact is essential in effectively securing your network.
Now that we've established the importance of a vulnerability assessment solution, let's look at some of the key differentiators that help you determine which vulnerability management solution is the best choice for you.
IT landscapes are extremely dynamic, complex, and constantly evolving. Every new system or software instance introduced into the network, every new connection made with partners, and every service offered or received presents new opportunities for risk.
Unfortunately, a single wormable vulnerability is enough to bring upon significant downtime for the business, forfeiture of sensitive customer or employee information, theft of business-critical information, or fines and/or lawsuits due to non-compliance. That being the case, scheduling monthly or quarterly scans isn't a good idea. Your vulnerability assessment software should be able to continually scan your network to sniff out new vulnerabilities as and when they emerge.
Recent ESG research on cyber risk management, which involved 340 cybersecurity professionals, revealed that 40 percent felt tracking vulnerabilities over time to be the biggest challenge of vulnerability management. Solutions offering central visibility and management for distributed, heterogeneous IT environments is essential to track your efforts consistently and stay on top of your vulnerability assessment game.
More often than not, enterprises rely on CVSS scores and severity ratings to zero in on which vulnerabilities to patch, but they don't work all the time. For instance, many publicly exploited vulnerabilities that were not rated Important. Therefore, it's essential to employ vulnerability assessment tool that helps you find and eliminate potential risks by taking a more rigorous prioritization approach.
Most vulnerability management software in the market offers patching through a third-party integration. But juggling multiple tools for vulnerability assessment and patch management results in fragmented and inefficient workflows.
Adopting vulnerability management software that offers built-in patching functions helps you automatically correlate patches for corresponding vulnerabilities as well as regulate and monitor remediation of vulnerabilities from the same vulnerability management console.
There are situations when patches aren't available for vulnerabilities. For instance, zero-day vulnerabilities are unknown and unpatched by the vendor, and ripe for exploitation in the wild by hackers.
One instance where you face a similar situation is when a disgruntled security researcher, whose warning of a vulnerability in a product is left unheeded by the vendor, posts the vulnerability details in a public forum. There are also cases where the vendor unwittingly reveals the details of a flaw in a security bulletin before a patch is in place.
The inadvertently leaked details of EternalDarkness flaw in MicrosoftSMB v3 in March 2020 is an example. A tool that helps you quickly spot these vulnerabilities and efficiently apply workarounds across all your endpoints to secure your environment against new threats is vital until a patch arrives to permanently fix the flaw.
Tackling these complex challenges calls for the right tool. ManageEngine Vulnerability Manager Plus is a prioritization-driven threat and vulnerability management solution with built-in patching. It comes with all the capabilities discussed above bundled inside and much more.
Vulnerability Manager Plus is end-to-end vulnerability assessment software that uses a continuously updated database of vulnerability information to help you detect vulnerabilities across your global hybrid IT and assess vulnerabilities based on various risk factors; it also helps facilitate the appropriate course of action to resolve vulnerabilities. With Vulnerability Manager Plus, you can:
Vulnerability Manager Plus offers a score of interactive dashboards that provide you all the intelligence you need regarding vulnerabilities in the form of graphs and charts. View trends and other filters to make informed decisions. Dive right in to learn in detail how the charts and graphs available in Vulnerability Manager Plus' dashboards can help with effective vulnerability assessment.
