The Impact of Visibility on Risk-Based Vulnerability Management

You Can’t Protect What You Can’t See

 

An organization can only protect the environment it is aware of.  As recommended by the principles of a CARTA strategic approach by Gartner, a strong Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (RBVM) program starts with continuous asset management and continues through the asset lifecycle. These efforts, while important, are only the first step. To intelligently prioritize vulnerabilities and overall risk, asset data needs to be enriched with business context to provide an essential understanding of the asset’s overall importance and criticality to the business.

 

“Vulnerability data is just noise unless it is married to accurate state data.”

 

Accurate Decisions Require Accurate Data

With NorthStar Navigator, our Enterprises start by building an accurate inventory based on the information generated by their existing tools and management systems. NorthStar intelligently pulls data from your existing sources and cleans/correlates/ranks the accuracy of each source based on confidence and aging. That information is then pulled into SuperLists, providing an accurate and comprehensive view of every asset and business application.

Once that repository is built, NorthStar can overlay existing business logic and information to help identify important characteristics like line of business and data classifications. This enriched asset inventory serves as the foundation for NorthStar Navigator to add existing and commonly used threat intelligence feeds like the CVE database and Symantec Deepsight to bring together actionable vulnerability and remediation information. When coupled with the comprehensive asset inventory, this exposure data (i.e. vulnerabilities, missing patches, device misconfiguration data, and security tool data) is now accessible and centrally located for any stakeholder in the organization from the CISO down to the help desk.

 

The Impact of Visibility on Context

The accessibility of this exposure and asset data dramatically changes the approach to remediating existing vulnerabilities.  By leveraging the enriched data that NorthStar provides, users are empowered to make critical and informed decisions based on real, verifiable data.

As new vulnerabilities are identified, NorthStar Navigator users can see exactly where that vulnerability exists in their environment as well as what the criticality of those systems to the overall business and prioritize the remediation efforts accordingly, all within a single pane of glass.  NorthStar users can also leverage historical data to track their ongoing remediation efforts based on a specific vulnerability or across the entire attack surface of the organization.

By utilizing NorthStar’s consolidated exposure and asset data, organizations are assured that they are utilizing their personnel and resources in the most impactful way.

 

The NSA Weighs In

The White House encourages immediate action to protect against ransomware attacks, and the first step in that action plan is “identifying vulnerabilities that can be comprised in order to enable encrypting the system.” Read more on the five best practices for safeguarding against ransomware attacks outlined by the NSA.

 

To learn more about how NorthStar Navigator can power your risk-based vulnerability management program, visit HOW IT WORKS.

Or contact us for a FREE demo.