In recent times, there’s been a huge buzz about the increasing popularity of Continuous Threat and Exposure Management (CTEM).
With multiple endpoints, network devices, servers, cloud infrastructure, and databases, the potential entry points for an attacker are high, making it difficult to stop threats rather than vulnerabilities.
The concept of managing threats is good, but is it practical?
Challenges Faced by IT Security Teams
The common challenges IT security teams usually face due to complex IT networks are as follows:
- Drastic rise in the number and frequency of vulnerabilities detected
- Rise in remote working environments leading to scattered IT assets and their risks
- Rapidly changing threat and attack vectors
- Ineffective threat monitoring/management
Even though vulnerability management has proven effective in preventing cyberattacks, it is not enough!
The biggest drawback of the present vulnerability management program is that it is not continuous, integrated, and automated. To overcome these limitations, many other tools/concepts started arising, such as RBVM or CTEM, each with its own limitations.
This led enterprises and IT security teams to develop assumptions/myths about vulnerability management.
Myths About Vulnerability Management
Myth 1: Existing vulnerability management is not continuous or automated
Vulnerability management was non-continuous because prior vulnerability management systems took too long to scan. Due to the extended length, scans were conducted once every quarter or month. As a result, there was an increasing backlog of vulnerabilities that was impossible to handle!
Myth 2: Patch Management is not automated, and the mean time to remediate a vulnerability is in months
Patching every risk in the massive backlog of vulnerabilities wasn’t simple. Furthermore, managing risks was considered too difficult, with the number of risks rising daily and ineffective prioritization. Risks had to be manually remedied, which was challenging, prone to error, and ineffective. Therefore, traditional patch management was considered slow and useless in the absence of automation.
Myth 3: Vulnerability prioritization is not found in current tools
It was difficult to prioritize which risk needed to be fixed first because of the exponentially growing number of vulnerabilities. It was discovered that while prioritizing risks using the CVSS was a good approach, it wasn’t enough.
Introduction of Continuous Vulnerability and Exposure Management
It’s a known fact that managing or remediating vulns also lessens the likelihood of attack surface. So, why not concentrate on remediating vulnerabilities/risks rather than jumping on to manage threats?
This is where the concept of CVEM (Continuous Vulnerability and Exposure Management) comes into play. It introduces the Weakness Perspective, the process of examining a network from a weakness perspective to drastically improve vulnerability management.
CVEM provides a whole lot of advantages/benefits to enterprises to stay ahead of attacks:
- Improved Scope of Risk Coverage: CVEM doesn’t limit itself to detecting vulnerabilities with CVEs alone; it provides a wide range of coverage by detecting anomalies, misconfigurations, exposures, and other security risks.
- Integrated Prioritization, Remediation, and Mitigation: By integrating vulnerability scanners, prioritization methods, and remediation solutions, CVEM drastically improves the speed of risk detection, prioritization, and mitigation.
This further enhances the overall effectiveness and speed of your weakness/risk management process. - Continuity and Automation: There isn’t any particular time for an attack to occur or for an attacker to invade an enterprise network. By using natively integrated continuous and automated scanning, CVEM improves the effectiveness of the detection and remediation process.
Implementing CVEM with SanerNow
SanerNow’s continuous vulnerability and exposure management provides comprehensive detection, assessment, prioritization, and remediation of security risks all under one roof.
By adopting a proactive “weakness perspective,” SanerNow continuously scans your organization’s network, identifying and addressing vulnerabilities in real-time. Further, SanerNow provides unmatched visibility into your network, enabling swift action to reduce and prevent potential attacks.
With its suite of 7 powerful modules, SanerNow streamlines the risk management process, seamlessly integrating detection, remediation, and beyond.
- Asset Exposure
- Posture Anomaly Management
- Vulnerability Management
- Compliance Management
- Risk Prioritization
- Patch Management
- Endpoint Management
Experience SanerNow by scheduling a demo now.
