How to Find Vulnerabilities Before Attackers Do

The current state of digital connectivity opens the door to a wide array of possibilities. However, that opportunity also brings new cybersecurity risks and greater vulnerability to cyberattacks. Technology plays a big part in our personal and professional lives. While businesses want to focus on finding new digital channels to gain an edge over competitors, you can’t forget the threat of cyber threats lurking everywhere.  

It’s hard to go a day without reading about another attack on a company or government institution. Failures in response management often lead to more damage than the initial breach. With expectations higher than ever, businesses can’t afford to fall behind when rooting out vulnerabilities in their technological infrastructure.  

The importance of vulnerability management 

Vulnerability management is the ongoing process of ensuring your computer networks, applications, and systems remain safe from cyberattacks. It’s one of the most critical aspects of an organization’s cybersecurity strategy. The ability to identify, analyze, and mitigate potential security weaknesses goes a long way toward preventing attacks and minimizing the fallout to your company.  

Essential elements of vulnerability management

Effective vulnerability management involves using a range of tools and solutions to address security threats. Most programs typically include components like: 

• Vulnerability scanning: Scanners assess systems and networks for common vulnerabilities. That includes exploiting known weaknesses, guessing default user passwords, or accessing restricted spaces.  
• Configuration management: Many organizations employ security configuration management (SCM) software to ensure secure device configuration. They also track and approve changes to device security settings and ensure that all systems comply with current security policies.  
• Security incident and event management (SIEM): Companies use SIEM software to consolidate real-time security-related information. SIEM platforms allow security managers to see what’s happening across a company’s digital space and IT infrastructure. SIEM tool responsibilities include:
  • Tracking devices looking to connect to company systems 
  • Monitoring network traffic 
  • Tracking remediation actions 
  • Generating security policy compliance reports 
• Patch management: Patch management tools help organizations keep computer systems up to date with the latest available security patches. They automatically check for updates. The solution prompts users to download a new version if one is available.  
• Penetration testing: Penetration testing software helps IT personnel identify and exploit weaknesses in computer systems. It lets you simulate attacks to help testers find vulnerabilities before they are exploited by a bad actor.  
• Remediation: Determining which vulnerabilities are a higher priority. From there, organizations should map out the following steps to address the issue and set up remediation tickets for IT to work.  
• Threat intelligence: Threat protection tools let companies track, analyze, monitor, and prioritize the most significant cybersecurity threats. These solutions collect data from various sources to identify trends and patterns that help them detect potential security breaches. 

Putting your security to the test 

One of the most overlooked aspects of protecting against cyberattacks is rehearsal time. Unfortunately, it’s almost inevitable that many companies will fall victim to an attack. You may not know when or how an attack will occur, but you can determine how your security protocols hold up under pressure when tested.  

Let’s look at a few examples of simulations you can conduct to put your security protections to the test.  

1. Phishing 

The scenario: An employee receives an email informing them that the company has received an alert that the employee’s credentials may have been compromised. The email includes a link asking employees to log in and update their information.  

What’s happening: Your organization sets up a template to send to employees to see how many respond to the phishing attempt.  

What you’re looking for: In this scenario, you check for a few things. Will the employee immediately report the email as spam, or will they click the link? If they do, redirect them to a landing page that informs them of the attack, then outlines the steps they should have taken, including: 

• Recognizing inconsistencies in the sender’s address 
• Reminding them that IT personnel will never directly ask them for their user credentials  
• Letting them know where to report emails they suspect may be a scam

Push the phishing scenario further by mocking an email purporting to be from a company officer. For example, you may send a communication from the CFO asking someone in accounting to transfer money to a specific account. 

You might have the head of IT request that a software engineer provide them with credentials to a protected database. The goal is to fit the scenario to one that a user might encounter in their job role.  

2. Penetration testing 

The scenario: A hacker attempts to access internal systems by exploiting a vulnerability in an API used by the company website.  

What’s happening: The business hired a third-party vendor to conduct penetration testing to determine whether a new API added to the site is resistant to cyberattacks.  

What you’re looking for: Identify vulnerabilities in the new API, document them, and provide recommendations to remediate any issues found. Once the company has resolved the issues, the vendor may rerun the test.  

This aims to ensure that changes made to the website don’t create new vectors for hackers to exploit.  

3. Functional exercises 

The scenario: A storm outside knocks out power to a company’s security operations center.  

What’s happening: The company is conducting a functional exercise to determine whether backups kick in as planned, allowing ongoing company operations.  

What you’re looking for: You want to determine how healthy teams respond to a sudden weather event that could disrupt company functions. Here, you assess how smoothly personnel transfer operations from that center to another location and whether they have up-to-date documentation for reference.  

Stay prepared with Kiuwan 

Kiuwan’s security platform combines static application security testing (SAST) and software composition analysis (SCA) to ensure the security and reliability of your business applications. Discover why our platform continues to earn the trust of developers across the country. Request a free demo today.

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