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Vulnerability Management

Find, prioritize, and mitigate – Know your vulnerabilities It’s more important than ever. With over 29,000 recorded vulnerabilities (CVEs) in 2023 and already over 28,000 registered this year, this trend will not fade anytime soon. IT systems, networks, applications, and hardware are being targeted more than ever, as modern computing power and techniques make it significantly […]

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Daniel Bo Sindersen

Security Analyst

Vulnerability Management – featured image

Find, prioritize, and mitigate – Know your vulnerabilities

It’s more important than ever. With over 29,000 recorded vulnerabilities (CVEs) in 2023 and already over 28,000 registered this year, this trend will not fade anytime soon. IT systems, networks, applications, and hardware are being targeted more than ever, as modern computing power and techniques make it significantly easier to find weaknesses and flaws. The trend of increasing vulnerabilities year by year has continued since they were first recorded over 24 years ago.

The graph illustrates the annual number of recorded CVEs since 2014.
The graph illustrates the annual number of recorded CVEs since 2014.

Why is vulnerability management so important

Because vulnerabilities are a hacker’s favourite! Exploiting known and unknown weaknesses in systems and applications has become hackers’ preferred way to access corporate and organizational data, ranking as the second most common attack vector, just behind phishing attacks.

Exploitation of vulnerabilities has exploded in recent years. Recent vulnerabilities like PaperCut and MOVEit Transfer, as well as previous critical ones like ProxyShell, Log4Shell, and ProxyLogon, had severe consequences for many companies.

The challenge is evident. With so many vulnerabilities and so much information, it’s difficult to know where to start and where to end. This is a common struggle we hear from our clients as they try to tackle this issue within their organizations.

The task seems overwhelming, and achieving complete security can feel unattainable. Fortunately, help is available to find, prioritize, and mitigate vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in your infrastructure. 

Modern scanning tools allow you to identify all vulnerabilities and misconfigurations on client devices, servers, network equipment, applications, software, and the cloud. These tools can quickly map vulnerabilities and misconfigurations across your infrastructure, enabling you to answer crucial questions: “Are we vulnerable?” and “Where should we focus our efforts to minimize risk as much as possible?”

The scanning tools come with scoring systems and classifications for system functionality, criticality, and importance, allowing you to visualize and prioritize vulnerabilities that require mitigation or patching. These tools scan internal devices and systems and externally exposed devices and servers accessible from the internet. They can also assess cloud environments to ensure that vulnerabilities are detected and misconfigurations are identified.

Cyber Threat Intelligence: A Better Way to Do Vulnerability Management

Why is vulnerability management hard and how can you improve it? Watch the webinar and learn about better approaches to vulnerability management and incident response, and how cyber threat intelligenc…

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We have extensive experience with scanning technologies and vulnerability reporting for organizations, helping clients sort and prioritize the massive amounts of information these tools provide. We find that addressing the high number of vulnerabilities often demands substantial efforts from internal IT and security teams, which already have heavy workloads, making it feel as though full resolution is unattainable.

Vulnerability Management encompasses the technical function of finding and prioritizing vulnerabilities and essential support processes to help mitigate vulnerabilities and convey their severity. Successfully implementing a Vulnerability Management initiative organization-wide is a significant task, requiring a clear focus on the core issue: the vulnerabilities themselves.

About the author

Daniel Bo Sindersen

Security Analyst

Damijan Markovič, CCIE #17025, is one of the leading experts in local and wide area enterprise networks. He specializes in Cisco optical, routing and switching devices, as well as network management for enterprises and service providers. He has more than 25 years of experience in planning, designing, and implementing corporate networks. Damijan is also a […]

Daniel Bo Sindersen

Security Analyst

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