Academy
TermDefence

Vulnerability assessment

Finding security vulnerabilities in systems, ranking them by severity and planning their remediation.

Flow

  1. 1Inventory
  2. 2Scanning
  3. 3Prioritisation
  4. 4Remediation
Related families
Meduza Stealer
MITRE ATT&CK
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Sources
5 sources
01

Overview

NIST defines a vulnerability assessment as a systematic examination to determine the adequacy of a system’s security measures and identify deficiencies. NIST CSRC

The common severity measure is the CVSS score; the list of actively exploited vulnerabilities is also taken into account when prioritising. FIRST

02

How it works

  1. 1

    Inventory

    Systems and software versions are listed. NIST CSRC

  2. 2

    Scanning

    They are matched against known vulnerabilities. NIST CSRC

  3. 3

    Prioritisation

    They are ranked by CVSS score and active exploitation information. CISA

  4. 4

    Remediation

    A patch is applied or a temporary mitigation is put in place. CISA

03

Real-world examples

Fortinet reported that CVE-2024-21412, which bypasses SmartScreen, was used in infostealer distribution; the vulnerability was also added to CISA’s known exploited vulnerabilities catalog. Fortinet

04

How to detect it

  • Match vulnerabilities newly added to the catalog against your own inventory every day. CISA
05

What to do

  • Prioritise actively exploited vulnerabilities regardless of their score. CISA
06

Related families and terms

07

Sources

  1. 1Vulnerability assessment — glossary definition · NIST CSRC
  2. 2Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) · FIRST
  3. 3Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog · CISA
  4. 4Understanding Patches and Software Updates · CISA
  5. 5Exploiting CVE-2024-21412: a stealer campaign unleashed · Fortinet, 2024
From the Essential plan

Infostealer Detection

See your firm's attack surface on one screen: how many findings, at which severity, on which domain.