Vulnerability management as a service is a cyclical process that includes several steps:
Discovery: The longer vulnerabilities remain undetected, the more likely they are to result in a breach. To combat this, companies should perform weekly external and internal network scans to identify new vulnerabilities.
Prioritize Assets: Once it’s known which systems are in use, companies can assign each asset a value based on its usage or role. This context helps companies know how pressing a vulnerability is to fix.
Assess Vulnerabilities: This helps companies understand the state of the applications and systems in their environments.
Prioritize Vulnerabilities: During a scan, vulnerabilities will likely be uncovered. Here, companies will need to prioritize them based on their potential risk to the business, workforce, and customers.
Remediate Vulnerabilities: Once vulnerabilities are identified and prioritized, the next step is to mitigate their impact. Here, organizations should work toward achieving an effective system-wide process between security operations, IT operations, and system administration teams to ensure everyone is on the same page.