In the cybersecurity realm, vulnerability is most likely the center of every domain and the most discussed topic. Vulnerabilities can bring people together to solve the issues that are being introduced as part of the constant technological advancement. However, just like a coin has two sides, vulnerabilities divide the Cybersecurity community into two major groups. One that hunts for the vulnerabilities and the other that remediates them. There’s a 50/50 chance that these two groups will continuously grapple to find a solution which meet their desired expectation.
What is a Vulnerability management team?
Vulnerability management team focuses on hunting, validating and planning to address the various weaknesses introduced by the systems used across the environment or organization. Systems can include the endpoints, servers, virtual machines, firewalls and anything connected to the internet. This team uses several tools and resources to scan and address the weaknesses before they get exploited by threat actors. To remediate the weaknesses, this team must work with other departments in the organization such as: Networking, Endpoint, Server Engineering and several other teams. Moreover, this team will continuously research and provide insightful remediation suggestions when new technology is introduced in the organizations.
What is a Vulnerability remediation team?
According to Cybersecurity definition, a vulnerability remediation team should consist of individuals who will be remediating the weaknesses in the systems they are responsible for. However, a vulnerability remediation team can be either a dedicated team or just part of an IT department who might be responsible for specific systems in the organization. For instance, A network team in an organization is responsible for their network infrastructure but, the same team can be considered as a vulnerability remediation team who will be addressing weaknesses in their network.
Struggles of Vulnerability Management & Remediation team?
If your organization has a dedicated remediation team whose only role is to fix the reported vulnerabilities, then the whole process becomes easy and hardly any struggle. However, not many organizations have the luxury to have a dedicated remediation team. Instead, they have their traditional IT departments to fix the vulnerabilities which becomes a constant struggle. There are many factors that contribute to these struggles, and I can point out some of them from the perspective of both the Vulnerability management team and the remediation team.
Struggles created from the vulnerability management team:
- Commonly, this team will pull a report from the scanner and simply open a request to remediate without giving proper details.
- No proper communication with the remediation team to educate them on the criticality and the comprehension of the vulnerability.
- Assigning remediation tasks to teams without the knowledge if they are truly responsible for the systems.
Struggles created by the vulnerability remediation team,
- Not properly understanding the task assigned to them and not raising any important questions to the vulnerability Management team.
- Often, this team will be reluctant to do some research on their own to find exactly what is required to fix.
- Playing the “not my problem” card and not communicating to the management to properly address the situation.
- Not meeting the proper timeline to remediate due to their other workload.
Ways to end the conflict?
Regardless of the constant scuffle between these teams, a balance can be created which will be beneficial to both teams. Here are few suggestions that may be helpful:
- Communication is key. Constant and clear communication between the teams will close the gap and create mutual understanding.
- Security folks need to educate the remediation team of the importance and the criticality of the vulnerabilities. Weekly meeting or personal meetings can be helpful.
- Remediation team needs to keep an open mind and reach out to the vuln. management team for any assistance.
- Continuous follow-ups are must. Vulnerability Team must track the remediation tickets daily and respond to any comment remediation team may have.
- Create an understanding between the teams. The best way to do it is to have the managers of both teams setup meetings and explain why their task is important and what can they do better together as a team.
To conclude, everyone must understand that vulnerability management and remediation team are both part of the same organization. If one team struggles to perform their duties, other must come forward and assist in any way possible. Threat actors would love to see these struggles between teams and take advantage if they find any gaps. In the end, our goal should be to keep our environment safe and it’s the responsibility of all the teams in the organization.