5 ways to create a successful vulnerability management program

Many organizations find creating a successful vulnerability management program challenging, mainly because it requires discipline and systematic work over a long period of time. In other words, it’s a never-ending process, but a worthwhile one. A successful vulnerability management program lays the foundation for a proactive cyber defense.

So how do you make yours successful?

1. Involve your team

Many organizations have multiple stakeholders and system owners. Involving these people is key, as they are often the ones responsible for remediation. Define clear areas of responsibility and then work systematically from there. Monthly or quarterly meetings are often very helpful, during which priorities and action items are discussed and followed up on. We also recommend providing management with regular updates. Needless to say, you also need a platform for vulnerability management that allows teams to cooperate seamlessly. 

Read about Holm Security’s new remediation experience. 

2. Accept that it’s an ongoing process 

Most organizations we work with uncover a large number of vulnerabilities of different severities. As vulnerabilities are remediated, new ones pop up, making vulnerability management an ongoing process that requires patience and determination. Accepting this is key to avoiding frustration and disappointment. Focus on systematically decreasing risk step by step.

3. Set a clear goal and track performance

Many organizations get lost without a goal, as they don’t know what they're aiming for. When kicking off a vulnerability management program, you should ask yourself what your goal is. Many organizations make the mistake of setting a goal based on an abstract metric, but it’s essential to give the goal context so that you also understand how your goal benchmarks against other organizations in the same industry. You can thereby, as an example, set the goal that your organization should have a risk that is lower than the industry average. 

Our Next-Gen Vulnerability Management Platform (VMP) helps you do just that with industry benchmarking. 

Start a trial to try it out.

4. Make it a systematic process

As vulnerability management is an ongoing process, as we established above, automation will be critical. Without automation, many vulnerability management programs never really get off the ground, as they require too many resources and manual effort. Automation allows for continuity, which is important to ensure you stay proactive and up to date with the latest vulnerabilities. 

Remember: you may have zero critical vulnerabilities today, but you could find many tomorrow. 

5. Choose the right technology

At the end of the day, you need the right platform to make your vulnerability management program successful. What platform you use depends on your organization’s needs, but the platform you use should: 

• Support teamwork and cross-team workflows
• Allow for automation and continuity
• Support goals and performance over time
• Cover as many attack vectors as possible
• Be easy to implement and use

Our platform provides the features and functions you need to set your organization’s vulnerability management program up for success.

Watch our platform demo to see how it works!