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What vulnerability management should deliver  

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By Eleanor Barlow, SecurityHQ

The purpose of Vulnerability Management is to ensure that organisations can accurately detect, as well as classify and contextualise vulnerabilities, within their organisation, and act on them to reduce the chances of a successful attack by exploiting the vulnerability.

With Vulnerability Management, once vulnerabilities are detected and prioritised, remediation programmes are then put in place to ensure patch management and compliance. The process works on a 24/7 basis, so that analysts are always monitoring the network for new vulnerabilities.

Key Challenges with Vulnerability Management

There are three key issues with supporting inhouse vulnerability management.

First, it often lacks the discipline needed, and the patch management involved, as a team is not usually dedicated to the process. Frequently, the task is pushed onto the IT department who already have their own workload and rarely have the skillset to conduct Vulnerability Management sufficiently.

Second, without the right number of analysts, or the analysts with the right skillset, organisations habitually lack the comprehensive visibility and ability to adequately analyse threats, which puts them at a greater risk.

Third, businesses are financially insensitive to the Vulnerability Management process and do not dedicate the right resources, both in terms of technology, people, and time. This means that vulnerabilities are missed, which leaves businesses open to attack.

Who Needs Vulnerability Management?

No matter the industry or size, all organisations need to have a Vulnerability Management process that provides them with the ability to detect weaknesses within their IT estate. This is necessary to know the risk levels of weaknesses, so that the right actions can be made. This is also a great way to know the order of priority when it comes to patching. You need to be able to analyse threats and the risk exposure, to know what your key concern is, and act on it swiftly in the right order. You don’t want to leave the greatest threat to be patched last.

What Your Vulnerability Management Should Give You

Successful Vulnerability Lifecycle Management means that you can access and prioritise vulnerabilities to reduce the risk of intrusion, exploitation, and data breaches.

Analysts should be able to provide complete visibility of IT assets, perform scans and analyse vulnerability data to offer advice on vulnerability remediation priority to remediate risks.

Outsourcing Vulnerability Management Checklist

If you are outsourcing Vulnerability Management to an MSSP, make sure that the service includes the following:

  • Auditable collaboration.
  • Accurate vulnerability mitigation prioritisation to identify key areas of concern/risk.
  • Intelligent analytic reporting for taking informed decisions.
  • Precise and applicable synopsis with carefully crafted reports provided on a regular basis.
  • Dedicated team who specializes in Vulnerability Management.
  • A team that is available 24/7, every day of the year, with round the clock support for scheduling, monitoring, and reporting on scanning activities. These need to be people not automations!
  • The ability to identify as well as map all risk level to specific threats.
  • Access to labs and the right intelligence to support advisories.

Vulnerability management not only increases a healthy cyber security posture of your business, but it also means that stakeholders have visibility and an understanding of your business attitude towards cyber security. This, in turn, can support ROI, by unleashing the full potential of the technology investments made.

For more information on Vulnerability Management, download data sheet here.

Or, to speak with an analyst, contact the team here.

About SecurityHQ

SecurityHQ is a Global MSSP, that detects, and responds to threats, instantly. As your security partner, we alert and act on threats for you. Gain access to an army of analysts that work with you, as an extension of your team, 24/7, 365 days a year. Receive tailored advice and full visibility to ensure peace of mind, with our Global Security Operation Centres. Utilize our award-winning security solutions, knowledge, people, and process capabilities, to accelerate business and reduce risk and overall security costs.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Sechq

Twitter: https://twitter.com/security_hq

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/securityhq/

Website: https://www.securityhq.com/

Author– Eleanor Barlow

Eleanor is an experienced named author and ghost writer, who specialises in researching and reporting on the latest in cyber security intelligence, developing trends and security insights. As a skilled Content Manager, she is responsible for SecurityHQ’s content strategy. This includes generating and coordinating content for the latest articles, press releases, whitepapers, case studies, website copy, social accounts, newsletters, threat intelligence and more. Eleanor holds a first-class degree in English Literature, and an MA from the University of Bristol. She has strong experience writing in B2B environments, as well as for wider technology-based research projects.

What is Red Team Assessment and how can it benefit business?

 960 640 Eleanor Barlow
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By Eleanor Barlow, SecurityHQ

Red Team Assessment as a service used to simulate real-life attacks, to know that the right security controls are implemented and working within a business, and to highlight the security gaps that would otherwise go undetected.

A key part of Red Team Assessment is where a simulation is used to mimic the behaviour of an internal employee in the company being tested. For this, the red team will have the same devices and privileges and try to gain unauthorised access to sensitive IT systems, active directory, business sensitive application/database and to see what data is accessible. The goal of this assessment is to learn which machines, servers and data can be reached, and if an attack can be made on the machine to move laterally throughout the organisation.

Obviously, in this attack there is no malicious intent, the purpose is to highlight if someone with malicious intent could indeed infiltrate and gain access to sensitive data/company information and the people and processes involved.

The Challenges Red Team Assessment as a Service Solves

The challenge with most organisations is that the majority, around the world, are now working remotely. The issue with this is that businesses do not know how secure their corporate devices are. In a Red Team Assessment, specific users/employees are targeted, to see if security solutions can be bypassed, and controls to elevate higher privileges and create backdoors into the target’s endpoint, can be made. This provides a clear understanding of vulnerabilities and the weaknesses in a company’s infrastructure especially while teams work remotely.

What Next?

‘Security Awareness is not just for those interested in cyber security. It is a crucial element that all employees must be aware of. The issue is that few organisations have a dedicated cyber security team, which means that few are educated on the necessary processes that should be conveyed to all employees in separate departments. With this lack of awareness, systems, processes, data, and people are left vulnerable. But once employees are cyber security aware, have a checklist in place, are able to recognise cyber threats, the impact of a cyber-attack, and know the steps to prevent cyber threats from attacking and infiltrating their systems, businesses improve their security posture significantly.’ – Tips to Educate and Protect Your Staff from Security Threats

For a comprehensive view of the features and benefits available with Red Team Assessment, download the data sheet here.

Or, to speak with an expert, contact a member of our team here.

About The Author

Eleanor Barlow

Based in London, Eleanor specialises in researching and reporting on the latest in cyber security intelligence, developing trends and security insights. As a skilled Content Manager and experienced named author and ghost writer, she is responsible for SecurityHQ’s content strategy. This includes generating content for the latest articles, press releases, whitepapers, case studies, website copy, socials, newsletters, threat intelligence and more. Eleanor holds a first-class degree in English Literature, and an MA from the University of Bristol. She has strong experience writing in B2B environments, as well as for wider technology-based research projects.

About SecurityHQ

SecurityHQ is a Global MSSP, that detects, and responds to threats, instantly. As your security partner, we alert and act on threats for you. Gain access to an army of analysts that work with you, as an extension of your team, 24/7, 365 days a year. Receive tailored advice and full visibility to ensure peace of mind, with our Global Security Operation Centres. Utilize our award-winning security solutions, knowledge, people, and process capabilities, to accelerate business and reduce risk and overall security costs.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Sechq

Twitter: https://twitter.com/security_hq

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/securityhq/

Website: https://www.securityhq.com/

What an Endpoint is, and how EDR can benefit business

 960 640 Stuart O'Brien
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By Eleanor Barlow, Content Manager, SecurityHQ

An endpoint, in its simplest form, is any device that can be connected to a given network, including, and not limited to laptops, computers, mobiles, servers, IoT devices, switches, cameras, digital printers, smart watches, and more. What constitutes as an endpoint is growing by the day. Be it in the form of health trackers or navigation systems, with any advancement in technology, the number of endpoints and, with it, the number of vulnerabilities grows.

What is Endpoint Detection & Response and How is it Used?

Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) is a service usually provided by a Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) that is used to continually monitor endpoints, gain full visibility of the clients IT environment, detect incidents, receive instant notifications and advice on how to contain and mitigate a threat and stop breaches

The challenge most organisations have within their security teams is that responses to cyber attacks are simply not fast enough. This is primarily due to the fact that organisations do not often have the right processes, systems, experts in place who can monitor, action and respond to threats effectively and in rapid time.

EDR is designed to speed up this response time by identifying the root cause of a threat and make blind spots instantly visible. With this visibility of their threat landscape, businesses can then understand and prioritise threats, as well as respond to what needs to be responded to first.

How Does EDR Work?

EDR can be used to monitor all potential threats and behaviours, through this, security teams can understand how a threat appeared, what created it, if it made a connection, if the registry setting was modified, what eff­ects this had, and more.

As this service is usually ran by a dedicated team, 24/7 SOC monitoring means that attacks already in progress are contained, and the infected systems are then isolated. The system processes are then terminated, and the hashes banned across the entire enterprise to ensure effective containment of a threat

Real-time response means that you can proactively locate the most advanced threats, that make it past your usual defences. This is often achieved by a combination of ML and human intelligence, to identify anomalous endpoint behaviour.

What Next?

To find out more on how to gain full visibility of your whole IT environment, detect incidents, and stop breaches, download this EDR data sheet here, for a comprehensive view of the features and benefits available.

Or, if you are experiencing a current security breach or possible incident and require immediate assistance, please complete this form and a member of our Security Operations Team will aim to be in contact within 15 minute.

About The Author

Based in London, Eleanor specialises in researching and reporting on the latest in cyber security intelligence, developing trends and security insights. As a skilled Content Manager and experienced named author and ghost writer, she is responsible for SecurityHQ’s content strategy. This includes generating content for the latest articles, press releases, whitepapers, case studies, website copy, socials, newsletters, threat intelligence and more. Eleanor holds a first-class degree in English Literature, and an MA from the University of Bristol. She has strong experience writing in B2B environments, as well as for wider technology-based research projects.