Vulnerabilities….What Are They?
Vulnerabilities are unintended flaws found in software programs or operating systems, which are the result of incorrect security configurations or programming errors. If not properly addressed, hackers can exploit these vulnerabilities – compromising your systems and data. Coding errors, such as failing to check user input, can allow attackers to access system memory, data, and execute commands such as injection attacks. Essentially, a vulnerability can be defined in two ways – a bug in the code that could be exploited to cause harm or a gap in security procedures or internal controls that can result in a breach.
Exploitation of vulnerabilities can lead to corporate network breaches, destruction of systems, or harm to people. Many exploits and vulnerabilities are available from exploit-db database – the offensive security’s exploit database archive, which also provides the exploit’s source code that can be tailored to any hacker’s needs.
According to Edgescan’s 2019 Vulnerability Statistics Report, 19% of all vulnerabilities were associated with (Layer 7) web applications, API’s, etc., and 81% were network vulnerabilities.
Protect Yourself Through Vulnerability Assessments
A vulnerability assessment (VA) informs the organization what weaknesses are present in their environment so they can reduce those associated risks. A VA provides an accurate representation of your security posture through a detailed assessment of hardware/software assets, assign vulnerabilities with a risk score, and identify potential associated threats. The process can include automated or manual techniques with varying degrees of rigor or emphasis.
VAs can prevent these type of attacks:
- SQL injection, XSS and other code injection attacks.
- Escalation of privileges due to faulty authentication mechanisms.
- Insecure defaults – software that ships with insecure settings, such as a guessable admin passwords.
There are three primary objectives of a VA:
There are two key elements when it comes to reducing risk – (1) understanding the present vulnerabilities in the environment and (2) responding swiftly to mitigate damage. Conducting regular vulnerability assessments allows the organization to:
- Identify known security exposures before attackers can exploit them
- Create an inventory of enterprise devices for future assessments and upgrades
- Define level of risks on the network
5 Steps of Vulnerability Assessments
These five steps will help you adequately organize your security resources.
What are the Next Steps?
VA reports provide the necessary insight and interpretation for a security veteran when determining which vulnerabilities require patches and which ones require in-depth remediation. The next steps in the process include penetration testing, vulnerability management, and overall risk management to help establish the goals for the next VA.