Cyber-security, until the advent of the newer technologies like Cloud, Social Networking etc. was limited within the network and its immediate peripheral devices/locations. According to a study, the vulnerabilities reported in the first quarter of 2018 are increasing at a fast pace. Today there are vulnerabilities that persist in the operating system and applications that are very dangerous for the enterprises. As efficient as the protection and solutions may be it is critical to detect and fix vulnerabilities first.
Last year, we saw the entire world being brought down to its knees by WannaCry Ransomware. WannaCry Ransomware used the Eternal Blue exploit, which was a part of the hacking toolset created by NSA and subsequently released by Shadow Brokers along with many other hacking tools created by NSA. Microsoft had issued an emergency patch for WindowsXP/Windows 2003 and for other Operating Systems too, however as we have seen in the past, enterprises have exhibited lackadaisical attitude towards security and vulnerabilities. Many of the enterprises and users haven’t yet patched up their systems, although this is one infection which has got the maximum media coverage in past few years.
Such Ransomware attacks are more wide-spread and pose a considerable threat. Hence updating your operating systems or installing a patch issued by the manufacturer is critical. Protecting the networks against the inevitable vulnerabilities requires more than just patch management. It is critical to minimize the attack surface ie the irrelevant parts of your network that an attacker has the opportunity to interact with and then attack.
Defense-in-depth will help to overcome the fear of vulnerabilities. New vulnerabilities are disclosed and exploited on a daily basis. Some are more serious than others, but the goal should be to make sure that none of them become the weak link that takes out the enterprise.
It is very important for the CIOs and CSOs to engage and discuss on how to examine the networks and minimize vulnerabilities. Regularly scheduled network vulnerability scanning can help an enterprise identify weaknesses in their network security before the cybercriminals can mount an attack.
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