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The database of information security vulnerabilities has grown significantly in recent years. This in turn creates a huge potential for attackers and hackers. Any vulnerability can become a way to implement a successful cyberattack. However, many companies do not pay enough attention to vulnerabilities and do not have a clear strategy for their effective elimination. Often companies use all their resources in the wrong places, that not only does not solve the problem, but also slows down the work of all systems.

A vulnerability is a weak point in a company’s information ecosystem that can be used to attack its cyberspace, IT infrastructure, software applications, and digital assets. Also, vulnerabilities are a «great» tool for a cybercriminal to gain unauthorized access to the system, compromise and steal data. Successful exploitation of vulnerabilities allows a cybercriminal to install malware, run malicious code, and as a result gain access to user accounts and steal data. There are many exploits for vulnerabilities: SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), web shell attacks (code that can control a damaged device) and open-source exploits (a type of malware).

There are several categories of vulnerabilities:

• hardware
• software vulnerabilities
• network
• staff vulnerabilities
• site vulnerabilities

Vulnerability remediation is the process of finding, eliminating and neutralizing security vulnerabilities in a company’s IT environment (computers, digital assets, networks, web applications, mobile devices, etc.). The eliminating vulnerabilities process consists of several stages.

Remediation is a key step in the vulnerability management process and is critical to protecting networks, preventing data loss, and ensuring business continuity. At this stage, the process of neutralization and/or elimination of active vulnerabilities or security threats takes place. The remediation process helps reduce the chances of data loss, data leaks, DDoS attacks, malware, and phishing. The remediation process is a collaboration between development, risk management, and security teams to determine a cost-effective way to fix vulnerabilities.

Vulnerabilities are addressed using innovative data processing techniques, threat intelligence and automated prediction algorithms. Such techniques help identify vulnerabilities and prioritize each one.

The fix process includes:

• finding and/or identifying vulnerabilities – finding errors in software code and configuration, such as incorrect authentication processes and security controls. Checks for new vulnerabilities should be regular. Finding vulnerabilities occurs through scanning and testing applications, systems and networks;
• prioritization of vulnerabilities by risk level (from high to low) – identifying and prioritizing each vulnerability according to criteria: risks, scale and complexity of vulnerability elimination;
• direct mitigation of vulnerabilities to a minimum or no risk to the system – elimination of weaknesses by correcting errors, updating, improving, removing inactive components;
• regular systems, devices and networks monitoring – provide continuous real-time network monitoring and scanning for potential vulnerabilities to quickly respond to them.

You can improve the process of eliminating vulnerabilities by using:

• a vulnerability management solution implementation
• KPI implementation: overall progress (% of vulnerabilities fixed); efficiency (a measure of success in addressing high-risk vulnerabilities); speed (how quickly vulnerabilities are fixed); performance (time it takes to fix vulnerabilities / estimated net profit or loss);
• vulnerability reporting tools usage.