The act of identifying, evaluating, and classifying priorities to the vulnerabilities (weaknesses) that exist in your computer systems and networks is referred to as vulnerability management. Attackers have the potential to take advantage of these vulnerabilities in order to obtain unauthorised access or control of your systems, steal sensitive information, or disrupt your operations. You may secure the assets of your firm and lessen the likelihood of a security breach if you identify the vulnerabilities that exist and take actions to address them.
The importance of vulnerability management lies in the fact that it enables you to:
- Uncover and identify vulnerabilities: Find and identify vulnerabilities that might be exploited by attackers using tools to scan your systems and networks. These weaknesses could be used by attackers to gain access to your system.
- Assess the risk: Once you have found potential vulnerabilities in your system, the next step is to evaluate the danger that these flaws provide to your company. This involves evaluating the likelihood that the vulnerability will be exploited and the likely effects if it is exploited. Additionally, this includes determining the potential impact if the vulnerability is exploited.
- Establish a vulnerability priority list: Because there are so many vulnerabilities to handle, you need to establish a vulnerability priority list to choose which ones to resolve first. Priority should be given to addressing the vulnerabilities that are the most severe and that provide the greatest threat to your business.
- Remediate the vulnerabilities: Once you’ve determined the order of importance for the vulnerabilities, the next step is to take action to resolve them. This may involve patching, upgrading, or customising your systems to lower the possibility of being exploited.
- Maintain vigilance with regard to the appearance of new vulnerabilities; even after you have dealt with the recognised ones, new ones may appear. Monitoring and scanning your systems and networks on a regular basis will help you find new vulnerabilities and keep your systems and networks secure.
In its most basic form, vulnerability management may be described as an ongoing process that involves discovering, assessing, and ranking the severity of vulnerabilities present in your computer systems and networks before taking corrective action to resolve such vulnerabilities. It helps to safeguard your company from cyber assaults and data breaches by finding vulnerabilities and remediating them before they can be exploited by attackers.