Vulnerability management is becoming increasingly complex. According to Luis Isselin, the general director of Tenable Mexico, a new vulnerability appears every hour. This means that traditional strategies to identify risks do not keep up with cyber threats. For this reason, predictive prioritization is increasingly essential.
This approach consists of re-prioritizing vulnerabilities based on the probability that they will be used during an attack. According to a report from the National Vulnerability Database (NVD): companies detected 16,500 vulnerabilities in 2018. This is a 10% increase over 2017.
With this overwhelming number of risks, how can your company know which one to attack first? There is a standard for the cybersecurity industry called the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). It categorizes threats according to their severity.
The problem is that this standard has become insufficient for predictive prioritization. IT teams categorized most of the vulnerabilities in 2019 as serious or critical. Considering this scenario, companies must focus on finding efficient solutions to properly scan vulnerabilities and assess cyber risk. Certainly, they also need a tool that allows them to prioritize such vulnerabilities as Tenable SecurityCenter CV does.
Keys to managing threats to your business according to their relevance
One of the great challenges for security professionals is to distinguish which threats are real and which require immediate attention. To achieve this goal, IT teams need a vulnerability prioritization plan. However, many do not know how to design it correctly.
They might first focus on fixing each vulnerability categorized with a score of 7 or higher by CVSS. However, this way, they will soon be overwhelmed by the amount of risk they must manage. The worst part is that not all of them are real or potentially harmful threats to the organization.
So they not only need a tool that is truly effective in predictive prioritization. Above all they need a plan that helps them make better decisions to mitigate cyber risks.
Manage the vulnerabilities that are being actively exploited
Tenable, a leading vulnerability management company, explains that security professionals only need to focus on three percent of vulnerabilities. After an analysis with a predictive vulnerability prioritization tool, it is possible to determine which ones are really exploitable. Then the IT team can target critical threats to determine which ones represent a real risk, so they can manage those in the first place.
Focus on vulnerabilities that could be exploited in the coming weeks
Once you manage the vulnerabilities that are already being exploited, you must fix those that are likely to be exploited in the coming weeks. Thanks to predictive models you will also be able to know what they are. To get this information, these systems rely on threat intelligence and analysis of past threat patterns and data from the National Vulnerability Database.
Check out the assets labeled as critical
After reviewing the actively exploited vulnerabilities and potential ones, you should pay attention to the assets labeled as critical. Also, keep in mind that if a cybercriminal decides to launch an attack against them, the organization could be affected on a large scale.
Tenable Security Center, the solution for predictive prioritization
The best way to avoid a cyber attack is to focus on the real risks to your business. To do this, you need vulnerabilities predictive prioritization like the one offered by Tenable Security Center.
This solution is based on the combination of data and threat intelligence from various sources. It also relies on the analysis of this data with an advanced data science algorithm. As a result and, through machine learning, you can anticipate the likelihood that cybercriminals will exploit a vulnerability in the near future.
Tenable Security Center can:
- Set a priority score for each vulnerability on a scale of 0 to 10.
Provide real-time information to differentiate between real and theoretical risks.
Provide a customized list of prioritized vulnerabilities that the organization should address first.
With this predictive vulnerability prioritization system, you will achieve a 97% reduction of critical vulnerabilities. Hence, you will avoid wasting time and resources placing patches on vulnerabilities that do not represent a real risk for the organization. Furthermore, you will be able to focus on those that are really exploitable.
If you want to implement this solution in your company, at GB Advisors we have experts who can help you. Contact us, and we will help you optimize cybersecurity in your company.
