The Importance of Vulnerability Scanning in Cyber Security

In an interaction with Asia Business Outlook, Kartik Shahani, Country Manager, Tenable India, shares his views on critical aspects of vulnerability scanning, business risks associated with cyber threats, role in meeting regulatory requirements, and shared intelligence in enhancing vulnerability scanning capabilities. Kartik Shahani is the Country Manager for Tenable in India. Based in Mumbai, Kartik has over 30 years of experience in the IT industry, driving momentum for enterprises. He spearheads initiatives for Tenable in the enterprise security market, manages operations, and continues efforts toward channel activities in India.

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, the significance of robust cybersecurity measures becomes increasingly apparent. How do you see the current reshaping of the cybersecurity landscape and why vulnerability scanning is a critical aspect in ensuring the security posture of organizations?

In 2024, as businesses increasingly depend on multi-cloud and hybrid environments to fulfill their infrastructure requirements, the pressing need to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) for bolstering security and ensuring compliance becomes evident. Neglecting to rectify vulnerabilities in AI platforms and misconfigurations in the cloud could result in severe repercussions, such as data breaches that adversely affect crucial decision-making processes. The threat landscape is constantly evolving and as systems attain a greater level of complexity, cybersecurity becomes a challenge. Furthermore, the number one way attackers gained access to organizations was through identity, followed by unpatched vulnerabilities.

While vulnerability scanning is a crucial element of cybersecurity, warding off attacks demands a more comprehensive approach. It necessitates complete visibility into all assets, in-depth understanding of potential security threats, and well-defined metrics for objectively gauging cyber risk. Addressing the evolving threats in 2024 requires organizations to shift from mere vulnerability management to exposure management. This transition enables them to perceive what potential attackers see, anticipate threats, prioritize preventive measures, and effectively communicate risks to enhance decision-making processes.

Cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated and diverse. In this context, how does vulnerability scanning adapt to keep pace with emerging threats?

For security consultants, penetration testers, and cloud security practitioners, keeping up with the rising number of vulnerabilities is a constant struggle. Securing the modern attack surface currently involves cobbling together different security tools to address different attack surfaces. Even then, it’s difficult to gain a complete picture of which vulnerabilities pose the greatest risk to organizations, leaving them exposed to unknown risks. In 2024, vulnerability scanning needs to evolve to include the entire depth and breadth of the attack surface. It should offer a fast, easy way to proactively find, prioritize, and remediate vulnerabilities, regardless of the attack surface. Vulnerability scanning capabilities evolve as the modern attack surface evolves.

In addition to identifying vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in traditional IT devices, vulnerability scanning must secure the external attack surface by identifying internet-connected subdomain assets and assessing them for vulnerabilities. It must also enable organizations to scan cloud infrastructure repositories to identify security weaknesses before pushing them to production instances, and unmask vulnerabilities in web applications. Traditional vulnerability scanning in itself cannot keep up with the evolving threats. Organizations need comprehensive solutions that help security teams identify what attackers see, with the right context to prioritize remediation.

Beyond technical considerations, there is a growing awareness of the business impact of cybersecurity incidents. How does vulnerability scanning contribute to minimising the business risks associated with cyber threats?

A more comprehensive approach to vulnerability management is exposure management. It illuminates the blindspots and silos created by multiple point solutions in use. Most often, cybersecurity teams use different solutions for vulnerability management, cloud security, identity and access management, web application security and more. This leaves security teams with the time-consuming task of manually exporting data to several spreadsheets, continuously chasing threats and responding to potential incidents. Since multiple solutions provide different metrics, reporting, and training requirements, existing vulnerability scanning techniques make it hard to unify different risk metrics and effectively communicate the true security status. Exposure management combines vulnerability management with the contextual understanding of the interplay between vulnerabilities, misconfigurations and identities across the entire attack surface so organizations can effectively minimize cyber risk.

Regulatory compliance is a paramount concern for organisations, particularly in industries dealing with sensitive data. How does vulnerability scanning play a role in meeting regulatory requirements, and how can organisations leverage this practice?

While regulations play a crucial role in establishing cybersecurity guidelines, organizations should not solely focus on meeting regulatory requirements. Although vulnerability scanning is a vital initial step for organizations to assess the highest-risk vulnerabilities, they must go beyond and embrace a cybersecurity strategy aimed at preventing attacks from happening in the first place. This entails adopting a comprehensive solution that incorporates vulnerability scanning across both on-premises and cloud environments, covering internet-facing assets and web applications. Such an approach provides organizations with the capability to identify the most critical vulnerabilities and identities, allowing for prioritized remediation to minimize potential damage to assets crucial for business continuity.

The shift to remote work or hybrid work has introduced new challenges in securing distributed environments. How does vulnerability scanning adapt to the complexities of remote work, and what measures can organisations take to ensure that their cybersecurity strategies remain effective?

The surge in remote and hybrid work setups has led to a proliferation of endpoints, users, and identities. Effectively managing and mitigating risks associated with this expanded attack vector necessitates companies to extend their security controls to cover these remote workers. Vulnerability scanning employs low-footprint agents to gather vulnerability, compliance, and system information, transmitting this data back to the vulnerability management platform for analysis. This approach enhances scanning flexibility, enabling security teams to evaluate assets that are frequently offline by employing extended scan windows for when these assets eventually connect to the network. It conducts scans on online assets without requiring continuous host credentials, minimizing the network impact from simultaneous large-scale scans.

While crucial for cybersecurity, organizations can derive additional benefits from solutions that provide contextual information about which remote users have access to specific assets and which users pose the highest risk. For instance, a senior executive's device running software with vulnerabilities presents a greater risk compared to a new employee's device with vulnerabilities. Organizations require preventive strategies that guide them in understanding which vulnerabilities need immediate remediation, providing a comprehensive view of the overall attack surface.

Collaboration and information sharing are crucial components of an effective cybersecurity defence. How can organisations collaborate with the broader cybersecurity community, and what role does shared intelligence play in enhancing vulnerability scanning capabilities?

Collaboration and information sharing between government agencies and private companies can improve situational awareness and facilitate a more effective response to cyber incidents. Understanding where the threat is coming from is useful from the perspective of a national cyber strategy. Such information can help determine how to prioritize remediations based on the motivations of threat actors. Additionally, collaboration can help to build trust between the public and private sectors, which is essential for effective cybersecurity.