Vulnerabilities in a Dynamic Network
One of the biggest challenges for security teams is knowing what assets are in their environment. Fluid assets like cloud services and containers come and go from the network, making it extremely difficult to constantly track them. Elastic infrastructure and BYOD transform the network into a shifting landscape.
The rapid pace of innovation, thanks to the adoption of modern computing assets like containers, DevOps, web applications, cloud and the internet of things (IoT), is helping organizations improve and streamline their business operations. But, it is also introducing new security risks that traditional vulnerability management methods, like active scanning, aren’t equipped to handle. If a cloud service or container isn’t on the network when an active scan is taking place, it will simply get excluded from the results. That’s why security must become a part of the software development lifecycle (SDLC).
On the other hand, operational technologies (OT), like supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) and industrial control systems (ICS), require a non-invasive approach to vulnerability management. Many industries like oil and gas, energy, utilities, manufacturing, government and healthcare rely on these critical infrastructure systems to keep business operations running smoothly. The challenge with securing safety-critical infrastructure and embedded systems like MRI/CT scanners, pacemakers, power plants and automobiles is that traditional agent-based scanning would require taking these systems offline, which would severely impact physical safety.
Compounding this problem, IT and OT are converging to create even bigger challenges for CISOs who are searching for a way to discover all of these assets and manage vulnerabilities holistically.
