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Thu, May 17, 2012

Vulnerability Management Evolution: From Tactical Scanner to Strategic Platform

By Mike Rothman

Organizations have traditionally viewed vulnerability scanners as tactical products, largely commoditized and only valuable around audit time. How useful is a 100-page vulnerability report to an operations person trying to figure out what to fix next? Although those 100-page reports make auditors smile, as they offer a nice listing of audit deficiencies to address in the findings of fact. But the tide is definitely turning. We see a clear shift from a largely compliance-driven orientation to a more security-centric view. We document this evolution to a vulnerability/threat management platform in our new Vulnerability Management Evolution paper.

No organization, including the biggest of the big, has enough resources. So you need to make tough choices. Things won’t all be done when they need to be. Some things won’t get done at all. So how do you choose? Unfortunately most organizations don’t choose at all. They do whatever is next on the list, without much rhyme or reason determining where things land on it. It’s the path of least resistance for a tactically oriented environment. Oil the squeakiest wheel. Keep your job. It’s all very understandable, but not very effective.

Optimally, resources are allocated and priorities set based on their value to the business. In a security context, that means the next thing done should reduce the most risk to your organization.

We would like to thank all our sponsors for supporting our research, including nCircle, Qualys, Rapid7, and Tenable. As long as compliance is in play you will need to scan for vulnerabilities. At least make use of a more functional platform to do that and more.

Download: Vulnerability Management Evolution

Attachments

Securosis-Vulnerability-Management-Evolution_FINAL-multi.pdf [462KB]

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