What is Vulnerability Prioritization?

What is Vulnerability Prioritization?

In simple terms, vulnerability prioritization is the act of placing threats identified (vulnerabilities) into an order based on severity classifications. It often ranges from the highest criticality at the top of the list, descending to the lowest impact and provides IT/Security teams with an organized list of how incidents should be handled.

What is a Vulnerability Prioritization Model?

A methodical approach that assesses security vulnerabilities and ranks them by severity score and/or classification.

Though different models exist for classifying threats, generally, scoring is based on a combination of factors, like severity (how bad it is), exploitability (how easy it is to execute) and impact (how much damage it could cause).

By categorizing threats based on score/severity levels, admins can first focus on incidents with the greatest criticality as they move down the list to the least critical.

Example models and frameworks

Common Vulnerability and Exposures (CVE)

The most mature model for identifying vulnerabilities, CVE, has been defining and cataloging publicly disclosed cybersecurity vulnerabilities for 25 years. According to CVE, “vulnerabilities are discovered then assigned and published by organizations from around the world…to communicate consistent descriptions of vulnerabilities.”

Though CVE does not technically provide a classification of vulnerabilities by a scoring system, it is mentioned here because it is often among the first steps in recording an identified vulnerability. It serves as a basis for the classification models we discuss next to score threats.

Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS)

Implemented in 2005, “CVSS is a method used to supply a qualitative measure of severity.” according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The most recent version, CVSS 4.0, has four metric groups: Base, Threat, Environmental and Supplemental. Metrics from each group are assessed, resulting in a numerical score ranging from 0.0 to 10.0, or lowest criticality to highest.

It is important to note that CVSS is not a measure of risk. Rather, it provides an accurate standard of measurement to be used by organizations when assessing their risk appetite based on the unique needs and compliance requirements of their environment.

Context-Aware Vulnerability Prioritization (CAVP)

A relative newcomer to the classification space, CAVP operates similarly to CVSS in that they both utilize CVE as a foundation upon which to build. However, CAVP notes two challenges to current vulnerability prioritization that it aims to overcome with its model:

1. Temporal characteristics (i.e., how CVEs change over time) are not effectively captured.
2. Manual labor is required to prioritize identified vulnerabilities.

CAVP is designed to incorporate temporal characteristics of vulnerabilities by “calculating temporal-enabled vulnerability scores of CVEs and prioritizing these vulnerabilities visually.” It also provides seamless integration with an organization’s risk management workflow, including a step-by-step process for prioritizing vulnerabilities.

What are the Key Factors of Vulnerability Prioritization?

Severity Scores

Scores play a significant role in the prioritization of vulnerabilities. The higher the scoring, the more critical the vulnerability, meaning that administrators should focus efforts on correcting higher-scoring vulnerabilities first before moving on to those of lesser impact.

Impact Analysis

Part of prioritizing vulnerabilities at an organizational level includes a proper risk assessment. Inventorying, assessing and analyzing risk and threat impact provides organizations with the perspective necessary to accurately determine which vulnerabilities admins should target and in which order. in other words, scoring alone doesn’t paint a comprehensive picture of your environment.

Exploitability Ease

Vulnerabilities are bad for security. We can all agree on that. But just like all vulnerabilities are not the same, the potentiality for exploitability varies across different threats, and this can affect how one organization may tackle vulnerabilities, whereas another organization prioritizes order differently. For example, a vulnerability that is classified as high-severity, potentially impacting 80% of your devices but currently only exists as a proof of concept (PoC), carries less weight than a low-severity threat that exists in the wild and impacts 50% of your devices.

Threat Intelligence

Active exploits and attack trends are part and parcel of determinations resulting from threat intelligence. Gathering rich telemetry data that supports device health statuses is table stakes to the success of any cybersecurity plan. Active monitoring provides IT/Security teams with visibility into device and organizational security postures, with real-time insight driving when, where and how to prioritize vulnerabilities to maintain privacy and data security.

Remediation Complexity

The last key factor, but one that’s just as equally important to consider when prioritizing vulnerabilities, centers around resource availability and the effort required to remediate endpoints. Taking a closer look at that statement, let’s focus on the first part. Resource availability is a critical factor because, well, if there’s a vulnerability but no sanctioned method to mitigate it, then that means that organizations will remain vulnerable. The second part, the complexity of remediation efforts, is impacted by how easy (or difficult) the workflow is to carry out. The former, despite ease, still adds a wrinkle to the overall prioritization effort; the latter adds a layer of challenge that could potentially bleed into other, more challenging facets, such as business continuity.

6 Steps to Implement Vulnerability Prioritization with Jamf

Identify Vulnerabilities

Perform scans on your endpoints, comparing the results against compliance baselines to determine which devices are vulnerable. Use rich telemetry data to gather threat intelligence on identified threats affecting your device fleet.

Assess and Score

Use telemetry information gathered from device logs, comparing findings to analytics to evaluate severity and exploitability. Through secure integration with your vulnerability management solution, determine the impact of any identified vulnerabilities against your environment.

Contextualize

Context is always important when determining the impact of a security vulnerability on your environment. By integrating identity and device management solutions, Zero Trust Network Access enables organizations to keep resources protected against introducing vulnerabilities while automating the deployment of remediation workflows to patch vulnerable software.

Rank and Prioritize

Endpoint security solutions, alongside built-in analytics, classify vulnerabilities based on severity. This presents admins with the data they need to more accurately prioritize incident response when addressing the issues that are most critical to your network first.

Vulnerability Remediation Planning

Once admins know what devices are vulnerable and have prioritized which vulnerabilities are most critical, the remediation plan will start to take shape. By including other steps within this listing, such as contextualizing, admins are better armed to remediate vulnerable systems and software through effective mobile device management policies to enforce compliance.

Monitor and Review

Try thinking of the vulnerability prioritization model as a cycle, not an act that occurs in a single instance. The “last step” of monitoring and reviewing after vulnerabilities have been patched successfully is subsequently the first step in the rebirth of the cycle. With hardware and software compliant once again, IT/Security teams continue to actively monitor endpoints, gathering telemetry data and assessing devices against baselines to ensure compliance continues to be met.