Vulnerability Prioritization Beyond CVEs
4. Why You Need to Consider Vulnerabilities Beyond CVEs
Limiting vulnerability prioritization to CVEs does not provide a complete picture of exposure and represents a substantial risk. Vulnerabilities encompass more than just software flaws. Assets missing security controls coverage, unpatched software, and devices that aren’t fully remediated are all environmental vulnerabilities—and risk exposures—that need to be incorporated into vulnerability prioritization.
The Holistic View of Vulnerabilities for Vulnerability Prioritization
Without full visibility into your environment—including devices, identities, software, and vulnerabilities—and without having threat intelligence and business context, vulnerability prioritization can be akin to finding a needle in a haystack.
Taking a holistic view of vulnerabilities in context with a comprehensive asset inventory enables you to better understand which vulnerabilities to address first.
Importance of Comprehensive Vulnerability Management
With the increase in threats and the growing backlog of vulnerabilities, organizations need to take a more comprehensive view of their attack surface.
Ignoring Environmental Vulnerabilities: Many organizations may be overlooking critical vulnerabilities by simply focusing on CVEs, leading to a false sense of security. Environmental vulnerabilities such as missing or misconfigured agents, end-of-life systems, cloud misconfigurations, and shadow IT are significant exposures that should be mitigated.
Contextual Risk Assessment: Every organization is unique and vulnerabilities can vary significantly in risk based on environmental context. For instance, a vulnerability in a public-facing system processing credit card data poses a different risk than one in a well-protected internal network. For more impactful vulnerability prioritization, detailed business context needs to be taken into consideration in addition to technical variables.
Holistic View of Risk: Looking beyond CVEs with vulnerability prioritization allows organizations to create a more accurate risk profile. Depending on the priority of an impacted asset, severity of vulnerability, or risk exposure, organizations can ensure that remediation efforts are focused on the areas of greatest need.