With the continual demand and increased responsibilities faced by Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), it becomes crucial to have a clear, updated picture and status of security posture and risk to systems and networks that have become the lifeline of an organization’s daily functioning.
There are various reasons these assets and networks carry an inherent risk. Many enterprises have embarked on digital transformation and accelerated their journey to the cloud. This means there are substantial benefits from more assets and devices getting connected to the internet and to the cloud and how that may be used by analytical, data warehousing, and diagnostic applications/ tools to realize operational benefits. However, it is equally true that this increases the attack or threat surface due to the connectivity from an increased number of devices. Greenfield and new generation IoT devices add to this threat surface as they get added to the organization’s ecosystem of assets and networks. What this has also resulted in are increased breach points wherein devices and assets may be used as stepping stones and networks may be penetrated with the subsequent objective of moving laterally within breached networks.
Cybersecurity researchers globally are consistent with their report on findings from vulnerability landscape studies. In that both the number and severity of industrial cybersecurity vulnerabilities have spiked in 2020 and continued northwards in 2021. A very significant number of assets and devices on IT networks, in industrial OT environments as well as connected IoT devices, have patching requirements and have known vulnerabilities that are globally published and exposed. The National Vulnerability Database (NVD) is testimony to the risk that thousands of vendors and millions of hardware/ software pose.
Here’s why it is so important to identify and flag the weaknesses and vulnerabilities so they may be mitigated.
Many disclosed vulnerabilities are remotely exploitable A significant number of disclosed vulnerabilities do not require authentication for exploitation Many do not need user interaction before remote exploitation A significant percentage of vulnerabilities can contribute to information theft, identity compromise, and/ or data exfiltration More than half of identified vulnerabilities can cause total loss of availability of systems.
This is going to be a crucial step toward hardening devices and assets, locking down networks, which are going to continue to fall under the management of IT organizations. Today, digital transformation and convergence are expanding the attack surfaces. IT security teams are responsible for overseeing and decision-makers will need to understand their risk posture and how technologies such as network-based detection and secure remote access solutions will need to be leveraged.
The situation is not too dissimilar from the early days of the maturation of IT security when Microsoft was under constant pressure from customers and security companies to lock down its products and install a secure development lifecycle. Windows, the desktop operating system leader, has faced relentless attacks from threat actors. Discovery after discovery of vulnerabilities by researchers resulted ultimately in trustworthy computing initiatives and regular patch cycles. Tech giants, such as Apple and Oracle, matched that model and built their customized cycle for security updates.
It is very evident from the above that one key and important logical place to start mitigating security risks is with software and hardware/ firmware vulnerabilities. A likely methodology that has delivered great results for organizations looking to enhance their cybersecurity postures is to perform a Vulnerability Assessment (VA) on the relevant networks, on the relevant assets, and flag the weakness so the vulnerabilities are exposed. Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) and related patching requirements are one such example. Likewise performing Penetration Testing (PT) simulation provides key insights into which are the weaker breach points in the network, how existing & resident vulnerabilities may be exploited, and how can one laterally move within networks to deliver the malicious payload of the cyber attack.
Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) is therefore at the forefront of mitigation and remediation strategies for CISOs to consider and obtain actionable insights to work with. This aids to shield the organization by supplying visibility of security weaknesses and guidance on how to address them appropriately.
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