Network vulnerability management is the discipline of tracking, identifying, understanding, and remediating network device (routers, switches, load balancers) and security device (firewalls, IPSs) vulnerabilities. Networks provide the backbone for today’s digital businesses and present a rich target for malicious actors who wish to exploit network and security device vulnerabilities to achieve their goals. 

Key components of Vulnerability Management include:

• Assessment: Identify and assign severity levels to security defects through automated or manual techniques.
• Scanning: Use scanners to identify known and potential security vulnerabilities.
• Remediation: Detect, correct, and patch vulnerabilities in a system or network.
• Common Vulnerabilities & Exposures (CVEs): Industry-recognized identifiers for known security vulnerabilities.

The topic of vulnerability management often conflates endpoints with network devices. These two types of devices differ significantly in their management, especially how they are patched. When a vulnerability is discovered, the best resolution is usually to update the device’s software.

Endpoints, where agents are run for this purpose, are relatively straightforward to update. In contrast, network devices, including security devices like firewalls, are much more complex to update because you can’t run agent software. Instead, these devices must be updated manually, an error-prone activity performed one at a time. Consequently, many companies can only update their network devices once or twice a year, making network vulnerability remediation a challenge.

Traditional Vulnerability Management Methods Don’t Cut It

Massive Volume of Vulnerabilities Thousands of CVEs are added monthly, along with data from CISA and vendor sites, complicating manual management . 40,009 CVEs were published in 2024 – a 38% increase from 2023.

Contextualization Complexity Managing a multivendor network is complex and error-prone. You need an accurate inventory, in order to analyze CVE data to assess your vulnerabilities, and then prioritize. 56% of breaches resulted from a known and unaddressed vulnerability.

Manual Intervention Addressing CVEs requires OS updates or configuration changes, which are complicated, time-consuming, and require after-hours work. 60% agree that IT security spends more time navigating manual processes than responding to vulnerabilities.

A New Approach: Network Vulnerability Intelligence

Vulnerability intelligence is crucial for network integrity. It focuses on identifying and analyzing new vulnerabilities and exploits cybercriminals might use. It focuses on vulnerabilities, data collection, analysis and prioritization, dissemination, and action. Thus, vulnerability intelligence enables organizations to address potential risks proactively.

Network vulnerability intelligence includes:

• Discovery and mapping
• CVE mitigation
• Risk level & analytics
• Remediation prioritized by risk analysis

BackBox network vulnerability intelligence gives companies a list of potential exposures based on their actual inventory (and by inventory, we mean vendor, device, and OS version) and the remediation tools to mitigate these known exposures. We are grounded in the reality of threats today by focusing on known vulnerabilities and the meta-data describing their risk rather than trying to predict the potential for risk in the future.

Mitigation or remediation? What’s the difference?

The language surrounding remediation is a little nuanced, so it’s worth clarifying the usage of the words ‘mitigation’ and ‘remediation.’

Mitigation involves reconfiguring a device to protect it from a known vulnerability. Recently, there was a vulnerability in the http server on Cisco devices. Mitigating this vulnerability requires turning off the http server. It’s straightforward, but what if you need the vulnerable feature? By definition, mitigation serves as a temporary fix.

Remediation, on the other hand, is a permanent solution to the vulnerability and is typically achieved through an update to the device’s operating system. Fixing a vulnerability involves removing it from the network by eliminating the software version that contains the vulnerability.

Remediation is challenging because updating device software is often a complex, time-consuming process requiring after-hours work and large change windows that are difficult to arrange.

Automation is an Important Enabler of Network Vulnerability Intelligence

Many companies have not implemented or invested deeply in network automation, opening them up to security breaches, ransomware, and other serious issues.

Network automation is the foundation for mitigation and remediation at scale, as well as inventory collection, which kicks off the whole vulnerability mapping process. Automation also brings many benefits by reducing manual errors and increasing team productivity.

As in the Cisco case above, what happens if you need to visit all your public-facing Cisco routers to turn off http and https servers? At scale, this quickly becomes a time-consuming, error-prone activity. Here’s an example of how much time can be saved with automation using a similar situation. For service providers, automation is an opportunity to shine with high-touch services that delight customers.

The ROI for network automation is easily measurable. Edafio, a leading managed service provider to mid-sized and enterprise clients, had a significant ROI by implementing automation for their patching and device updates. And, that ROI doesn’t even measure the value of limiting the team’s after-hours work or enabling the team to have more time to focus on higher value strategic work over mundane software updates.

Network Vulnerability Intelligence as a Tool to Defeat Ransomware

Ransomware is not often considered the domain of network teams. However, software updates ensure that firewalls and security devices performing deep content inspection contain the latest virus and content definitions, helping to prevent malware from entering the organization.

Software updates are tied to vulnerability tracking and often relate to the remediation phase in the vulnerability lifecycle. It’s important to understand that a network cyber resilience platform like BackBox streamlines software updates, helping network and security teams act responsibly in preventing ransomware from entering the organization.

What are vulnerability intelligence benefits?

Vulnerability intelligence helps organizations proactively identify and address potential security vulnerabilities, preventing them from becoming significant cybersecurity threats. This proactive strategy safeguards against security breaches and protects a company’s reputation and financial stability.

Effective vulnerability management improves compliance with protocols and regulations. Additionally, it offers organizations a clearer understanding of their overall security risk landscape and identifies areas where improvements can significantly impact their overall security posture.

Vulnerability management offers three key benefits:

1. Improved security. Often, vulnerability tracking is done in a spreadsheet without understanding the exact network inventory you’re protecting. An automated network vulnerability solution helps map your exact inventory against known vulnerabilities to help visualize your security posture and gamify improvements. BackBox also automatically analyzes new devices as they’re onboarded to ensure that no new known vulnerabilities are added to the network as they’re connected.
2. Reporting and collaboration. Security is a team sport, yet security teams are increasingly overwhelmed by the growing attack surface they must address to protect their organization from rising attacks. Network teams can help. With a network vulnerability management tool that allows them to report on vulnerabilities and necessary remediation activities for devices within their scope of responsibility, network teams can proactively keep their peers in security and compliance up-to-date and help alleviate the burden they face.
3. Operational efficiency. Device updates are complex, time-consuming activities. Prioritizing and simplifying them based on their impact on security is critical in improving the network team’s effectiveness against threats and strengthening the organization’s overall security posture.

Summary

BackBox vulnerability intelligence helps network and security teams save time, reduce errors, and proactively manage the vulnerability lifecycle. Our platform identifies and correlates known vulnerabilities with your inventory of network and security devices. It

prioritizes these vulnerabilities based on their risk and your security posture and offers options to automate updates or implement configuration workarounds.

Discover the advantages of BackBox today. Schedule a 30-minute demo for an interactive tour of the BackBox platform.