Vulnerability assessment and management practices are critical to minimizing the exposure and attack surface of your whole infrastructure. Here are some best practices for vulnerability assessment and management:
1. Detecting vulnerabilities: Before you can assess how badly vulnerabilities are affecting your infrastructure, you need to know what vulnerabilities youre dealing with. Tools and techniques that can detect known vulnerabilities in different phases of the software lifecycle, from development to runtime, can be used. For example, package management tools usually offer integrated vulnerability scanning for installed packages .
2. Blocking vulnerabilities: Image scanning is basic for vulnerability assessment. The next step is to block vulnerabilities. This can be done by using a container registry that can block images with known vulnerabilities .
3. Prioritizing vulnerabilities: Prioritizing vulnerabilities is essential to ensure that the most critical vulnerabilities are addressed first. A high-risk vulnerability on a perimeter host is more important than a medium risk on a central host .
4. Assigning owners to critical assets: Assigning owners to critical assets can help ensure that vulnerabilities are addressed in a timely manner. This can be done by assigning a security champion to each team or project .
5. Documenting scans and their results: Documenting all scans and their results can help ensure that vulnerabilities are tracked and addressed in a timely manner. This can be done by using a vulnerability management database .
6. Establishing a remediation process: Establishing a remediation process can help ensure that vulnerabilities are addressed in a timely manner. This can be done by creating a remediation plan that includes timelines and responsibilities .