Vulnerability & Patch Management
In the world of cybersecurity, threats can evolve rapidly and threat actors are continuously looking for new vulnerabilities everywhere. Because of this fast-paced discovery and development of exploits, the importance of proactive cybersecurity can’t be overstated. Within any organization, there can be countless potential security risks just waiting to be discovered and exploited. Thankfully, there are plenty of systems and strategies that can help keep data safe. One of the most important parts of information security, however, is often also one of the most overlooked: vulnerability and patch management.
Best Practices
One of the most effective things an organization can do is perform regular and comprehensive vulnerability scanning. Many services exist, both free and paid, that can perform these scans and provide reports to an information security team. Once a vulnerability scan has been performed, the results need to be prioritized in order to identify the highest risks to the organization. The reports from scanning tools will often provide a risk or severity rating. For vulnerabilities that are already widely known, the report might also provide a score from the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), which is a system that attempts to quantify the threats a vulnerability can pose and assign a numerical number to it. Both of these can be used as a guideline to determine which vulnerabilities pose the biggest threat to the organization. Once remediation steps for a vulnerability are identified, they should be tested in a controlled, nonproduction environment first. Due to the complexity of modern networks, it can be difficult to determine the full impact of a patch or update without actually putting it in place. By testing these fixes in a nonproduction environment, the risk of something breaking in the production environment is reduced.
In addition to vulnerability scanning, effective patch management is another great proactive method of reducing the risk of an organization. Many security flaws in hardware and software are either discovered by the company who creates the product or is reported to that company first before the information is released publicly. This can allow the creator to implement a fix for the vulnerability and release an update before the exploit is widely known. By keeping up with these security patches for any hardware and software that is in use, an organization can stay a step ahead of any potential attackers looking for a way in. Similar to how vulnerability remediations are implemented, security patches and updates should first be prioritized and then tested in a nonproduction environment.
To help track and implement these changes, clear policies and procedures should be put in place. By having these policies and procedures formally documented, there shouldn’t be a lot of questions or ambiguity around how vulnerabilities and patches should be handled in the organization. This also helps with activities like onboarding and training new staff since everyone will be following the same procedure and there will be documents that can be referenced.
Challenges
Even “simple” networks now are often complex enough to pose challenges when it comes to vulnerability and patch management. Sometimes an organization uses different versions of an operating system, or different operating systems altogether. In larger companies, it’s not uncommon that there are multiple physical sites, each with their own set of users, hardware, or even IT teams. Given how systems are often built on top of each other, it’s also possible that a computer is running an outdated operating system because the company requires a piece of software that hasn’t been updated in years. All of these factors and more have to be considered by the team in charge of prioritizing patches and vulnerability fixes. That is why a severity rating or a CVSS score should be used as a starting point for risk assessment and not the only determining factor.
Another challenge teams often face is balancing security with usability. A computer that isn’t connected to anything and has no user accounts is secure, since no one can access the files on it, but is completely unusable. The opposite side of that is a computer that doesn’t require a username or password to log in, which makes it convenient, but incredibly insecure. Finding the balance between those two is something that has to be determined by the organization, and every organization will have a different balance point.
Summary
Although vulnerability and patch management are foundational aspects of information security, they are also often overlooked. It is important that an organization identifies vulnerabilities within the network and implements fixes based on priority. Proactive patching of systems should be used alongside regular vulnerability scanning to make sure the organization’s attack surface is minimized. In addition, clear policies and procedures outlining the proper way to handle the discovery and implementation of fixes should be in place to ensure that the remediation process is handled in a safe and consistent manner. If your organization needs a professional consultant or to perform cybersecurity patch management, CONTACT Vestige today.