Take IT Security seriously with Vulnerability Management

The advantages that IT offers can be used against you more than ever by hackers, for example. Do you stick to a one-off scan? Or does your organization need to be secured at all times? Turn it into policy with Vulnerability Management.

Why is Vulnerability Management important?

Vulnerability Management is the continuous process of identifying, assessing, handling and reporting vulnerabilities in systems and software. As cyber threats become more sophisticated, you can no longer ignore weaknesses. Attackers look for it 24 hours a day. So you should too. Before they do.

We have the experience that more and more companies are aware of this. What's still missing: consistency. Vulnerability Management is the solution for this.

Scan and done: no longer works.

You can perform a one-time scan. As a result, you can act. Totally fine. But tomorrow another method has been invented to infiltrate your network. And in addition, your network may grow, but your IT Security will not grow with it.

In other words: a one-time snapshot only helps you at the moment. And not very soon after. Vulnerability Management keeps the focus on the long term. Especially for:

• Preventing data breaches: Unupdated software or misconfigured systems can easily become targets for cybercriminals.
• Preserving your reputation: Given that cyber-attacks regularly make the news, a breach can significantly damage an organization's reputation.
• Ensuring compliance: Many industries are bound by regulations that prescribe specific security standards. Especially now the NIS2 guideline coming up. Vulnerability management helps organizations meet these standards.

First things first:

The importance of a Vulnerability Scan for companies

A Vulnerability Scan is one of the core components of vulnerability management. By regularly scanning systems and software, organizations can identify known vulnerabilities before cybercriminals can exploit them. This is why a periodic approach is crucial:

• Continuous protection: The threat landscape changes daily. Regular scans help companies keep pace with attackers.
• Efficient Resource Allocation: By identifying vulnerabilities, IT teams can address the most critical threats first.

We use tools from, for example, for a vulnerability scan  pentera of tenable. These partners have one of the hplatforms provide comprehensive scans that help companies identify and manage potential risks.

Vulnerability Management in practice

Vulnerability management is not just about identifying vulnerabilities. Its use spans a multitude of mission-critical operations. Aumatics will start with an initial scan for Vulnerability Management in consultation with you. In any case, this short study covers:

• Risk assessment: Understanding vulnerabilities helps companies better assess their overall risk profile.
• Improving security posture: Ongoing vulnerability management refines and improves an organization's overall security posture.
• Prepare for incident response: Knowing potential vulnerabilities helps organizations plan for incident response. If a breach does occur, organizations equipped with this knowledge can respond more efficiently.

Although this is incidental in nature, the scan shows where the focus should be when solving the biggest bottlenecks. Aumatics then sets the priorities in a long-term action plan.

Then what are we talking about? In any case, consider:

• Systematically updating, patching and updating virus definitions
• Monitoring threats
• Setting up dashboards
• Intervene and assist in incidents
• Applying resilience measures

Doing it once is already nice. But this structured planning and application gives you a growth model for IT Security. That is by far our preference, because it minimizes the chance of a successful attack on your company network.

Are you invulnerable with this? Not that. Maybe a leak will be discovered tomorrow, (hello, Log4j) so that we have to take immediate action. Perhaps there is a type of attack that has been released very recently and for which there is no cure for a very short time (zero day attack).

Meet the requirements

Thanks to our approach, you have arranged things in such a way that there is only an attack due to sheer force majeure. And not for any culpable cause.

Are you vulnerable? Then you have a time span of minutes through Vulnerability Management before this is discovered and resolved. Instead of hours or days. This also helps you comply with the new NIS2 guideline. The deadline to comply is October 2024, so it's time for action.

In short, wherever you are as an organization: Vulnerability Management is not an extra, but a necessity. In a world where cyber threats are ubiquitous, it is the right protection to protect continuity, reputation and future.