In the last few years, there has been a strong increase in corporate security threats due to cyber attacks. Because of this, vulnerability management has become an essential part of every company’s IT security plan.
Without an effective vulnerability management program, your data and your entire IT system are left open to threats.
Perhaps this is the first time you’re considering vulnerability management for your company, or you’ve already set up a program to manage the vulnerabilities of your business.
In either case, you’ve probably heard about all the IT security threats, but maybe you’re still not entirely convinced about the importance of implementing effective vulnerability management.
Here we’ll walk you through the main advantages of vulnerability management and show you exactly how important it is for the security of your business.
Vulnerability management defined
When considering the benefits of vulnerability management, we first need to give it an accurate definition, so you’ll understand what it can do for your company.
In the simplest terms, vulnerability management is a process used to monitor for potential security risks in your IT system, as well as generating a remediation plan for any risks that are found.
Since the strategies and methods used by cybercriminals are constantly changing, vulnerability management is an ongoing process that aims to keep your security system up to date and safe from the latest threats as they become known.
In order to be effective, your IT system must be continuously scanned for vulnerabilities, and novel remediation strategies must be developed for any new risks that develop.
Here are the top 4 advantages of vulnerability management:
-
Reduce your costs
An effective vulnerability management program will save your business a lot of money.
Every time your company experiences a security breach, dealing with the consequences can be extremely expensive. Your entire IT team will have to focus on getting the problem under control, you may lose valuable data, and even worse, you might have to deal with theft of your clients’ data.
In addition, you’ll probably have to upgrade your whole system in the wake of a security breach, and your staff won’t be able to work effectively until the system is restored.
But, if you have an effective vulnerability management program in place, this will protect you from most major threats, and so will save you a lot of time and money in the long run.
-
Increase your IT security
The main purpose of vulnerability management is to increase the security of your IT system.
As mentioned above, securing your IT system is an ongoing process that relies on constant monitoring of threats and scanning for risks in your system.
Companies that specialize in vulnerability management never rest, since they need to stay on top of the latest threats and develop new and improved solutions to deal with them.
As a result, you won’t have to worry about security threats, because highly qualified experts are doing it for you.
-
Identify weaknesses in your IT system
If you’re not an expert in cybersecurity, you probably have no idea about the weaknesses that could be exploited in your IT system.
This is a big challenge, because there is a long list of weaknesses that can potentially be exploited, and all of them need to be addressed. Because of this, it can be difficult to know where to begin, and what issues you need to focus on.
But if you get help from experts, they can scan your system quickly to identify the most critical weaknesses. And once those have been addressed to ensure remediation, they’ll go on to do deeper scans for other weaknesses.
As a result, an ongoing vulnerability management program will gradually improve the security of your IT system, by progressively implementing patches, and addressing risks one at a time.
This means that your security will improve steadily over time since each security scan will reveal fewer risks and potential weaknesses.
-
Save time for your IT team
If your IT team constantly has to deal with security breaches, they will have very little time left for their other tasks.
If you consider the time that it takes to remediate the effects of a security breach after it has occurred, you’ll appreciate that spending some time in advance to protect your system can save your whole team a huge amount of time.
So, by implementing effective vulnerability management, you’ll avoid your IT staff getting bogged down dealing with a major breach.
Indeed, if you choose to outsource your vulnerability management, that will free your IT staff from it almost 100%, allowing them to devote their full attention to the daily running of your IT system.
Conclusion
So, is your company currently running a vulnerability management program to protect it against security threats? If not, you should definitely consider implementing one immediately, to make sure you’re safe from the increasing wave of cyber threats.