Cybersecurity is no longer just about finding and fixing vulnerabilities in your systems and networks. It is
also about anticipating and preventing attacks from malicious actors who are constantly evolving their
tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs). This is why organizations need to shift from a reactive
vulnerability management approach to a proactive threat management approach.
Traditional vulnerability management
Vulnerability management is a continuous and automated process that keeps your systems, networks,
and applications safe from cyberattacks and data breaches. As such, it is an important part of an overall
security program.
By identifying, assessing, and addressing potential security weaknesses, you prevent attacks and
minimize damage if an incident occurs. The goal is to reduce the overall risk exposure by mitigating as
many vulnerabilities as possible. This can be a challenging task, given the number of potential
vulnerabilities and the limited resources available.
Vulnerability management must be a continuous process to keep up with new and emerging threats and
changing environments. It typically includes the following components:
- Asset discovery and inventory,
- Vulnerability scanning,
- Patch management,
- Configuration management.
Proactive threat management
Proactive threat management is an extension of traditional vulnerability management that involves
identifying security problems before they occur. It is a more strategic approach that focuses on
understanding the threat landscape, the adversary’s motivations and capabilities, and the potential
impact of an attack on your organization’s business.
It requires a combination of advanced tools, techniques, and skills, such as:
- Threat intelligence – collecting, analyzing, and disseminating information about current or emerging
threats to an organization’s assets or interests. It can help you identify the most relevant threats to your
environment, understand their TTPs, assess risk level, and prioritize response actions. - Threat hunting – proactively searching for Indicators of Compromise (IoC) or malicious activity within
an organization’s environment, using various data sources, such as logs, network traffic, endpoints, or
cloud services. Threat hunting can help you discover hidden or unknown threats that may have evaded
traditional detection methods, such as antimalware or firewalls. - Threat modeling – identifying and analyzing the potential attack scenarios that could affect your
organization’s assets or operations. Threat modeling can help you design and implement more effective
security controls to mitigate the risks posed by different types of threats. - Threat simulation – testing your organization’s security posture, in a secure manner, by mimicking real-
world attacks or scenarios. Threat simulation can help you evaluate your readiness and resilience against
various threats, identify gaps or weaknesses in defense, and improve incident response capabilities.
The importance of proactive threat management
Proactive threat management can help you achieve many benefits:
- Reducing the attack surface – By identifying and addressing vulnerabilities before they are exploited by
attackers, it helps you reduce the number of entry points or opportunities for compromise. - Enhancing the detection capabilities – By collecting and analyzing threat intelligence and hunting for
IoC or malicious activity, it helps you detect threats faster and more accurately. - Improving the response efficiency – By modeling and simulating attack scenarios and preparing
countermeasures, you are prepared to respond to incidents more effectively and minimize the impact. - Increasing the security awareness – By educating and training your staff you foster a culture of security
and accountability.
So, How to implement this proactively?
You need to have a strategic vision, a dedicated FTEs, and a robust framework. Here are practical steps
to adopt a proactive threat management approach:
- Define the scope and objectives: Firstly determine the scope and objectives of the threat
management program, such as what assets or processes you want to protect, what threats to address,
and what outcomes to achieve. - Assess the current state: Document your current vulnerability management activities and security
operations capabilities, such as what tools and solutions you have, how you use them, and how effective
they are. - Identify the gaps and opportunities: Then, identify the gaps and opportunities for improvement in
processes, such as what challenges or issues you face, what best practices or standards you can adopt,
and what resources or support you need. - Develop the action plan: Define what activities or tasks you need to perform, what roles or
responsibilities you need to assign, and what timelines or milestones you need to follow. - Execute and monitor the plan: execute the plan and monitor the results or metrics you defined to
measure, what feedback or lessons you need to learn, and what adjustments or changes you need to
make.
Collaboration – an added value to threat management
Collaboration is a crucial component of your security strategy. Vulnerability remediation is a complex
process involving multiple teams. A strong collaborative security framework allows for more efficient
threat detection and mitigation by empowering everyone to contribute.
Collaboration helps break down knowledge silos, agree on prioritization for security threats, streamline
workflows, share best practices, and leverage collective expertise.
We propose you the way you can foster collaboration:
- Establish clear roles and responsibilities: define who is responsible for each stage of the vulnerability
management lifecycle, such as discovery, assessment, remediation, verification, and reporting. This
helps avoid confusion, duplication, or omission of tasks. - Create cross-functional teams: they should include representatives from different departments or
functions, such as development, operations, security, compliance, and business. This helps ensure that
different perspectives and needs are considered and addressed in the vulnerability management
process. - Implement common tools and platforms: this enables seamless communication and collaboration
among different teams. This also helps ensure that everyone has access to the same information and
resources, such as vulnerability scanners, patch management systems, configuration management tools,
threat intelligence sources, vulnerability databases, etc. - Adopt standardized processes and procedures: they should be aligned with industry best practices or
frameworks. This helps ensure that everyone follows the same steps and methods for identifying,
assessing, prioritizing, resolving, verifying, and reporting vulnerabilities. - Provide regular feedback and recognition: enable this to your teams for their efforts and
achievements in vulnerability management. This helps motivate them to continue collaborating and
improving their performance.
Conclusion
Proactive threat management is a cybersecurity paradigm shift that can help you stay ahead of the curve
and protect your assets and operations from cyberattacks. By integrating threat and vulnerability
management into security operations, you can achieve a more comprehensive and effective security
posture that can reduce risk, enhance detection, improve response, and increase awareness.
And finally, collaboration is a key factor that enables optimization of your vulnerability management
processes by leveraging the collective knowledge, skills, and resources of teams.
