Strategies for Improving Vulnerability Assessment Effectiveness in Large Organizations

Implementing or maintaining a vulnerability assessment program in a large organization requires a dedicated team to conduct the assessments, and to evaluate the findings. In most businesses, security is not a revenue generator; indeed, it is a cost center. In order to provide value, you must either improve the effectiveness of the program, or reduce the drain on resources. There are several steps that can be taken to reduce the impact to your environment, to include: effective communication of the program, use of appropriate change and enterprise management, placement of assessment tools, tuning the assessment policy and automating the assessment. In addition, a new process to manage the assessment data, termed vulnerability management, has materialized. This spawned the creation of several new solutions to address the issue of data management. Combined with the essential elements stated above, these tools will increase the effectiveness of your vulnerability assessment program.