Data Breach Prevention: 3 Ways To Identify System Vulnerabilities

Hackers search for vulnerabilities in order to break into computer networks, which means organizations need to set up systems to assess these weaknesses. By assessing “vulns,” cybersecurity professionals can identify the flaws and address them. Three basic ways to identify vulnerabilities are penetration tests, auditing, and software solutions.

Penetration Tests

Companies will hire individuals to find ways to crack into its own systems. Once these authorized hackers have broken in, they reveal their tricks to the system owners rather than do any damage. Penetration tests are especially useful to illustrate how a real hack might happen.

Sometimes penetration tests are required by security standards. For example, the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) Requirement 11.3focuses on penetration tests and recommends they be performed at least once a year and whenever there is a major infrastructure or application change.

Audits

Hiring an auditing team is another option for assessing vulnerabilities. These individuals, frequently consultants, make a detailed report of all the security issues a company faces, from out-of-date software to poor staff practices. A penetration test is often a component of a full audit.

Auditing provides a bird's-eye view of a firm's security status. Auditors survey the data a company possesses and examine who has access to it and how it is used. Understanding the flow of information is crucial for seeing where the security risks are. Regular audits are a good health check for an organization's IT infrastructure.

Software Solutions

Penetration tests and audits can bring good results, but software is always changing, introducing new vulnerabilities, and hackers are always developing new exploits. Companies need continuous security monitoring to protect themselves from cyber attacks.

Software security tools can provide the day-in, day-out intelligence needed to alert a company to the presence of vulnerabilities. Vulnerability management, for example, scans a network in search of holes that need repair. This proactive approach works in part by frequently checking a system against constantly updated database records of known vulnerabilities.

How to Repair Vulnerabilities

Once a vulnerability has been identified, the next step is to patch or otherwise repair it, preventing hackers from using the flaw as an entry point into the system. Organizations can develop policies for applying patches, requiring, for instance, documentation of all changes or advance scheduling of patch deployment. In some cases, companies can leverage technology to automate the process.

This is a more viable option for many companies as it saves them both time and money and allows them to focus on the day-to-day operations of their business that demand their time.

If you're interested in identifying and addressing vulnerabilities in your systems, but don't have the time or resources to manage this yourself, consider a managed service, such as EiQ's SOCVue Vulnerability Management service.

eiqnetworks