10 Ways to Turn the Tables on Vulnerabilities with ServiceNow Vulnerability Response
As I said in my blog, Vulnerabilities Just Got More Manageable; your vulnerability management is critical to your security strategy. With vulnerabilities continuing to increase at a rapid pace—an eye-popping 26,448 increase between 2021-2022!—I’ll show you ten ways to make sure you’ve got the upper hand on the non-stop vulnerability onslaught, and are managing security vulnerabilities with ServiceNow Vulnerability Response:
1. Fixed Price Means Affordable Vulnerability Protection
With ServiceNow Vulnerability Response, you get a streamlined, risk-based approach to managing security vulnerabilities more effectively, and it’s available as a fixed-price solution. A comprehensive vulnerability solution that’s also cost-effective.
2. Automation. Automation. And Automation.
Remember when you tracked vulnerabilities using a spreadsheet? I don’t either (that was before my time), but the horror stories I would hear… yikes! Does this scenario sound familiar? IT SecOps teams find a vulnerability, jot it down in the spreadsheet, and figure out how to resolve it, only for another exploit to be discovered! You couldn’t win!
Now, with our ActivateVR solution, you can include vulnerability testing that automates:
- Scanning
- Penetrations testing
- Vulnerability notifications
- Grouping and prioritization vulnerabilities
3. Stay Ahead of Your Attackers
You know what they say, once you find out you’ve been hacked, it’s too late! Managing your network security requires a layered approach, where each layer is vital to your security and integrity. Any business connected to the Internet needs to protect its data and computers with effective vulnerability assessment programs. With ActivateVR, you get constant protection—not at periodic intervals like with other solutions—against new vulnerabilities that threaten your organization and can do so anytime.
Plus, our ActivateVR solution lets you prioritize your vulnerabilities by performing vulnerability response data correlation with groups, calculators, and libraries.
4. Patch Those Vulnerabilities in Real Time
Being diligent about patching helps you stay ahead of attacks. Patching vulnerabilities the moment they’re issued enables you to stay in front of your attackers and neutralizes potential breaches before your sensitive data is released into the wild.
Our ActivateVR solution helps you manage patches and patch deployments for critical vulnerabilities by:
- Coordinating imports for greater effectiveness
- Submitting patch requests for approval
- Scheduling updates to resolve vulnerable items
- Monitoring remediation progress from your ServiceNow NOW Platform
5. Unlock Your CMDB by Importing Asset Information from the Vulnerability Scanner
A lack of good data often blocks a successful vulnerability response. With the ActivateVR solution, you automatically load host information and vital insights from your vulnerability scanner to keep your CMDB up to date while improving ROI and driving a successful global vulnerability management program.
We designed ActivateVR using a cybersecurity delivery model unique and tailored to the needs of your chief information security officers (CISOs) and vulnerability managers.
6. Increase Your Response Time with a Defined Security Posture
ActivateVR works with ServiceNow’s Security Operations application suite, which connects security to your IT department, increases response speed and efficiency, and gives you a definitive view of your security posture.
7. Clearly Track Your Vulnerability Response Flow
With ServiceNow Vulnerability Response, you can easily triage your vulnerability response time by following the flow of information, from integration and investigation to resolution.
Also, with ActivateVR, you automatically correlate vulnerabilities in your environment with the solutions to remediate them. Identify the remediation actions that apply to your environment and prioritize them by the greatest reduction in vulnerability risk.
ServiceNow Vulnerability Response provides several useful reports, charts, and an Explorer dashboard to analyze and monitor data before and after remediation. You can also return Vulnerability Response-related information using the global search feature.
Automated rescans confirm that your changes have taken effect or that they need to reschedule.
8. Get a 360-View of Your Vulnerability Response
After vulnerability data has been scanned and imported, get a clear view of our vulnerability response by comparing the data to configuration items (CI) and software identified in the ServiceNow Asset Management application to:
- Compare vulnerability-related data
- Escalate issues by creating change requests and security incident records
- Manage items grouped by vulnerability, CI, or individually. Each vulnerability represents a vulnerability entry in the NVD, Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE), or third-party libraries
- Relate a single third-party vulnerability to multiple Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure (CVE) entries
- Use CWE records for reference when deciding whether a vulnerability must be escalated. Each CWE record includes an associated knowledge article describing the weakness
9. Create Change Requests and Coordinate Planning
Vulnerability Response remediation is primarily a manual process performed at the group level. There are multiple ways to remediate remediation tasks. If the vulnerability is a security incident and Security Incident Response is activated, you can create security incident records.
Assignment rules are used to automate vulnerable items or vulnerability assignments. Due to the large volume of data imports, care should be taken with automated vulnerable item assignment.
10. Anytime Anywhere Mobile Vulnerability Response
Stay in the know by tracking your vulnerability response from wherever you are. With your device, view and search vulnerabilities, remediation tasks, and assignments using the ActivateVR mobile app. With the app, you reassign edit fields and begin remediation without being tied to the desktop.
Learn how Milestone’s ActivateVR puts a halt to the non-stop vulnerability onslaught!
Additional Resources
How a Holistic Approach to Cybersecurity Can Reduce Your Risk
