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How to Avoid Common Software Vulnerability Management Mistakes

Vulnerability management (VM) is an essential process through which organizations can reduce risk in their environments. But myths and misconceptions surrounding VM abound. For instance, organizations commonly approach vulnerability management in the same way as they do patch management. Others are guilty of believing that all attacks rely on vulnerabilities, while others still are under the false impression that all software patches will work without a hitch.

When held by digital security teams, these and other misconceptions can lead to mistakes in the vulnerability management process. Such errors, in turn, undermine organizations’ digital security posture more broadly. Provided below are three of the most common of these slip-ups.

Mistake #1: Not prioritizing risk properly

If there’s one thing that’s for sure in information security, it’s that there’s no shortage of known software vulnerabilities. Software providers rightfully respond to these flaws by routinely releasing dozens and dozens of patches in their security bulletins. For instance, Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday for June 2019 included fixes for a whopping 88 security vulnerabilities in the Windows operating system and related software. Meanwhile, Oracle Technology Network’s Critical Patch Update Advisory pushed out patches for 334 security flaws in July 2018 alone.

Given this number of vulnerabilities, organizations might feel inclined to fix as many vulnerabilities as possible. But this desire does not work in the favor of organizations’ digital security postures, as bad actors don’t develop exploit code for all vulnerabilities. In fact, a research study led by Kenna Security and the Cyentia Institute found that malefactors actively exploit less than two percent of vulnerabilities in the wild.

Kenna Security’s research finding reveals that digital attackers tend to craft exploit code for an extremely small percentage of known security holes. It, therefore, doesn’t make sense for organizations to treat all vulnerabilities the same. Nor is it (Read more...)