Do you want to detect vulnerabilities in the IT infrastructure in your organization before hackers get a chance to exploit it? Then go for vulnerability assessment.
Quick Summary – The flip side of technological growth is undoubtedly the increasing number of cybercrimes. Hackers are always at the ready to exploit any potential weaknesses in your IT infrastructure. However, do not worry! There is a solution available that can assist organizations in identifying weaknesses in their networks. Please keep reading to learn more about it.
With the leap in technology, almost every organization nowadays depends on technology to carry out their day-to-day operations. This has simultaneously increased the risk of cyber threats that are powerful enough to halt your business instantly. During the 2nd quarter of 2022, around 52 million data breaches were reported.
Such statistics are daunting. The greatest challenge in front of the organization is how it should protect its business-related data from cyber criminals. The harsh reality is that cybercrime cannot be stopped. However, the chances of cyber attacks can be mitigated by making your organization’s networks and systems almost impenetrable.
The first step to protecting your organization against cyber attacks is to know the flaws/weaknesses in the IT infrastructure of your organization. One of the best ways to detect such defects is by conducting a Vulnerability Assessment regularly. This article discusses vulnerability assessment, its types, and how it can benefit an organization from various cyber crimes.
Vulnerability assessment is meticulously reviewing and then figuring out existing and potential security weaknesses or vulnerabilities in an organization’s information system or software. This assessment process involves identifying vulnerabilities, assigning severity levels, and developing solutions to remedy security issues.
For instance, a Vulnerability assessment can help dodge threats, such as –
The types of vulnerability assessments are as follows –
As the name suggests, this assessment includes identifying potential network security issues and detecting systems on wireless and wired networks vulnerable to cyber-attacks.
It is a process of assessing mobile applications to ascertain whether these apps are vulnerable to potential cyber threats or not. Under this assessment, the defense mechanism of applications against known and potential threats is checked by performing both static and dynamic mobile security testing methods.
This assessment helps to identify incorrect configurations and security vulnerabilities in web applications and their source code. It can perform static/dynamic source code analysis or use front-end automated vulnerability scanning tools.
Web application assessment is a must for cloud-based and online applications. The vulnerability scanners can locate web flaws such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and path traversal.
This assessment entails evaluating big data systems or databases to locate misconfigurations and weak points/vulnerabilities. It also involves Identifying insecure development/test environments or rogue databases and improving data security by classifying sensitive data.
This assessment prevents malicious cyber-attacks such as SQL injection, distributed denial-of-service, and brute force attacks.
This assessment points out vulnerabilities in workstations, servers, and other host networks. This scan primarily examines services and open ports and provides enhanced visibility into the configuration settings as well as the patch history of scanned systems.
The process of security vulnerability assessment consists of 4 steps, which are as follows –
It is the method of identifying and listing the vulnerabilities in the organization’s IT infrastructure. This is done by conducting automated vulnerability scanning and manual penetration testing.
Once the vulnerabilities have been identified, this step helps find the root cause and sources of those security flaws/weaknesses. While specific causes of vulnerability might be simple and easily remedied, other vulnerabilities might have a complex origin.
Hence, to identify the severity of the vulnerability, the vulnerabilities are run through a security assessment process. Through this process, not only the severity of the vulnerability is determined but also the probable solutions. The method also suggests whether to accept, mitigate or remediate the risk/vulnerability thus identified, as per the concerned organization’s risk management strategy.
This step is all about prioritizing the identified vulnerabilities. This is usually done with the help of a Vulnerability assessment tool such as the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) to allot a numerical score on a scale of 0 to 10, depending upon the severity and principal characteristics of the vulnerability.
In addition to this, a good Vulnerability assessment report takes into consideration the following factors:
Remediation involves finding solutions and implementing them to fix the security issues identified in the risk assessment procedure. Vulnerability Management Systems provide recommended techniques of remedy to fix common vulnerabilities. These remedies might be as simple as merely installing easily-available security patches or as complex as replacing hardware. Remediation techniques always vary depending on the type of vulnerability.
However, not all vulnerabilities can be remedied. Nevertheless, organizations can mitigate vulnerabilities, i.e., reduce the degree of their susceptibility to malicious cyber-attacks and the impact of the exploitation. Some of the common mitigation steps include-
Organizations must frequently and proactively conduct a Vulnerability Assessment to secure their organization’s data/resources from inside and outside cyber threats. This is because of the various benefits. Some of them are:
Early detection of security flaws/weaknesses enables remediation of such issues as early as possible. This reduces the chances of being exploited by adversaries, which can profoundly impact an organization’s assets and reputation.
To earn the customer’s trust, the organization needs to assure them that their valuable data is safe with the organization. This will also help the organization to be at par with its competitors.
Suppose an organization depends on third-party vendors for IT solutions such as backup, email, or system administration. A vulnerability assessment enables them to verify the platform’s performance in such a case.
Suppose an organization lies under a regulated sector. In that case, a vulnerability assessment ensures that the organization meets the compliance standard, which protects the organization from paying a fine for non-compliance. It also helps in getting a security certification such as ISO 27001.
Any business organization’s primary concern is safeguarding users’ data and sensitive business information. However, this attempt is being thwarted by the unprecedented rise of cyberattacks conducted by unethical hackers. Hence, it is crucial to strengthen data security measures.
Sattrix fully comprehends the importance of data security and the challenges organizations face. Thus, it offers the best quality Cybersecurity services and Cybersecurity solutions to relieve organizations of their worries about data theft. Our company provides end-to-end cybersecurity solutions not only to large global enterprises but also to startups.
Sattrix’s vulnerability assessment services are unique in several ways, which makes us popular among our clients. To understand, what makes our services one of a kind, let’s consider some of the characteristics of our vulnerability assessment tool, some of which are as follows –
Our services do not end here. In addition to the features mentioned above, an organization can also be entitled to the following benefits:
