Companies and various business enterprises are bound by many regulations and industry standards to continuously monitor their systems and networks. All potential risks and threats that could come from malicious activities are managed successfully. To do this, all business operations should ideally be streamlined. A lot of companies use a number of products to achieve this result, making monitoring for vulnerabilities extremely difficult due to all the varying tools.
The only way companies can protect their processes, software, and operations are by creating baselines and metrics and applying them across the organizations to measure their security. Since technology keeps evolving, so make the threats that come with it. This means the methods that companies use to keep their applications, networks, and data safe also need to keep evolving.
Today, enterprises just do not depend on one security framework. Most businesses use a combination of products to streamline their operations. The only way monitoring for new vulnerabilities across diverse tools can give companies security protection is if they create effective baselines and metrics that will help them measure security. In this regard, Common vulnerability and exposures (CVE) are one through which enterprises can track security issues across multiple software, network, and systems to gain a holistic view of their cybersecurity risks.
How do Organizations Check their Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE)?
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) list is a list that is often referred to as the dictionary for all network, software, and system vulnerabilities. It is a standardized naming convention created for companies to share and view information about new risks easily. It also has information that will help them create baselines for their existing processes that will help companies evaluate cybersecurity tools and services and how effective they are.
A Common Vulnerabilities Exposure can be defined as a single identifier that has been applied to a single vulnerability or exposure and a standardized description. It is more of a dictionary than a database and can be considered a strong way to improve companies’ security. CVE creates a common language used for different databases and tools. It also supports operations and creates a basis to evaluate different services, tools, and databases. It is free to download and used and endorsed by the industry.
An Example
In an organization, employees might get the option to choose between operating systems like Mac or Windows for their computers. If the company does not use the CVE list, the IT department will have to reconcile all vulnerabilities that come with Apple and Microsoft. This means the team members will have to monitor for new vulnerabilities for individual operating systems and then reconcile them and update the software properly.
With the CVE list, there is no reconciliation. This way, the security patching process gets streamlined. Once the names of vulnerabilities have been standardized, it becomes easier to prioritize updating the security patches and focus more on the ones with the same CVE, regardless of whether it is an Apple product or Windows.
The goal of CVE
The main reason why CVE was created was to make sharing the knowledge and information about all known vulnerabilities a lot easier for organizations. This would give companies access to expert knowledge and ways in which they can protect their processes and networks from vulnerabilities. This is done by creating an identifier for a vulnerability or exposure, a standard across the world.
These identifiers or names help various experts and security professionals get detailed information about individual cyber threats because of the common or standardized name. Protecting information systems for companies gets a lot easier when they use the CVE list.
Benefits of Common vulnerabilities and Exposures
Companies get the chance to create a baseline that helps them evaluate their security tools’ effectiveness with the help of CVE. The common identifiers or names of threats, vulnerabilities, and exposures in the CVE list help companies understand what each information security tool protects and covers and how well it will work with their organization.
Experts in charge of information security and cybersecurity can use the CVE list information to check for threats and any known attack signatures to help them identify vulnerabilities in their processes. Tools with CVE compatibility help to reduce the company’s risk for information and data breach or loss.
What is the CVE process?
The first step to getting any vulnerability added on the CVE list is by finding the vulnerability. A researcher could find a flaw in software that could act as a potential vulnerability to security. The researcher then needs to prove how it can be a vulnerability or can be used to exploit it.
The information provided by the researcher is then given an identifier or a CVE ID by a CVE Numbering Authority (CNA). If the claim is strong enough, then the CNA will write the vulnerability description and add references. This will officially complete the CNA entry, and it will get added to the CVE list. This list is posted on the official CVE website by the team.
The Heartbleed Bug (CVE-2014-0160): An Example of Common Vulnerability and Exposure
The Heartbleed Bug is an extremely serious and widely known vulnerability found in OpenSSL. With the Heartbleed bug, hackers can easily steal the protected information normally protected by the SSL/TLS encryption. This encryption protects the web, email, IM, and VPNs by providing communication security and privacy.
The vulnerable versions of OpenSSL software have secret keys that get compromised with the Heartbleed bug because anyone on the internet can read the protected data. All traffic encryptions, names and passwords, and other content become easily accessible to the hackers, and they get the chance to steal data from the services itself. This way, hackers can impersonate the services or users to scam people.
The vulnerable OpenSSL got fixed and released across various operating system vendors, appliance vendors, and software vendors. Users need to install the fix in their software and operating systems to protect them from the Heartbleed Bug.
Final Thoughts
Companies need to train employees in deploying software that is compatible with the CVE list to understand more about how common vulnerabilities and exposures for products and services. With proper implementation, the chances of protecting the organization’s valuable data increase. There are many popular IT Security and Governance certification courses that employees can take to help them achieve their business goals.
Some of the popular IT Security and Governance certification courses that individuals and enterprise teams can take up to implement CVE are:
