Establishing a robust Threat and Vulnerability Management (TVM) Policy and Procedures is crucial for any organization operating in the cloud. This policy defines the processes for identifying, reporting, and prioritizing the remediation of vulnerabilities to protect systems from exploitation. It should be reviewed and updated at least annually to ensure it remains current and effective.
Where did this come from?
This control comes from the CSA Cloud Controls Matrix v4.0.10 - 2023-09-26. You can download the full matrix here. The CCM provides a comprehensive set of security controls mapped to various industry standards. For more background, check out the CSA TVM Overview and the AWS Vulnerability Management Guide.
Who should care?
- Cloud Security Architects designing the overall security framework
- DevSecOps Engineers integrating vulnerability management into CI/CD pipelines
- Compliance Officers ensuring adherence to applicable laws and regulations
- IT Operations Teams responsible for patching and remediation activities
What is the risk?
Inadequate vulnerability management can lead to:
- Unauthorized access to sensitive data through exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities
- Business disruption due to malware or ransomware attacks
- Reputational damage from public disclosure of breaches
- Non-compliance fines and penalties
A comprehensive TVM policy and procedures can significantly reduce the likelihood and impact of these adverse events by ensuring a consistent, disciplined approach to finding and fixing vulnerabilities.
What's the care factor?
For most organizations, vulnerability management should be a top priority. The potential consequences of ineffective TVM are severe - data breaches, system outages, financial losses. Even a single unpatched vulnerability can provide an open door for attackers.
However, the exact care factor depends on the sensitivity of your data and criticality of your workloads. An e-commerce site with millions of credit cards needs to care a lot. An informational brochure website, not as much.
When is it relevant?
TVM policies and procedures are relevant for any organization with an IT infrastructure, which is basically everyone these days. They are especially critical for:
- Highly regulated industries like finance and healthcare
- Organizations handling sensitive personal data
- Internet-facing systems and applications
- Complex environments with a large attack surface
They may be less relevant for very small organizations with simple, low-risk IT environments. But in the age of cloud computing and ever-evolving cyber threats, that's increasingly rare.
What are the trade offs?
Effective vulnerability management requires time, effort and resources:
- Scanning tools and services have licensing and usage costs
- Triaging and prioritizing vulnerabilities takes skilled analyst time
- Patching and remediation efforts can be disruptive and time-consuming
- Aggressive patching can potentially introduce instability
There's also an inherent tension between security and convenience. Frequent patching and strict TVM policies can be seen as a burden by development teams under pressure to ship features fast.
The key is striking the right balance based on risk appetite. Automate as much as possible. Bake TVM into the dev process so it's not a bolt-on.
How to make it happen?
- Define the scope - what assets, environments, and compliance regimes are covered
- Establish roles & responsibilities - who owns vulnerability scanning, prioritization, remediation
- Select vulnerability scanning tools - open source, commercial, agent-based, authenticated vs unauthenticated
- Configure scan frequency and depth based on asset criticality and compliance requirements
- Integrate scanning into CI/CD pipelines to assess code and dependencies pre-deployment
- Aggregate and correlate scan results in a central dashboard for unified visibility
- Prioritize vulnerabilities based on exploitability, impact, and asset value
- Set SLAs for patching timeframes based on severity
- Implement automated patching where possible, manual processes where needed
- Verify remediation with re-scans and penetration tests
- Feed vulnerability data into SOC, SIEM, and risk reporting workflows
- Review and update policy and procedures at least annually
What are some gotchas?
- Agent-based scanning requires deploying and managing agents on every endpoint
- Authenticated scans need privileged credentials managed securely
- Scanning can be disruptive - avoid peak hours, use throttling, exclude sensitive systems
- False positives happen - not every finding is an actual risk
- Patch fatigue is real - endless reboot cycles can hurt productivity
- Legacy systems may have no vendor patches available
- You'll need exception workflows to handle accepted risks
- Cloud and containers are ephemeral - persist scan histories
- Permissions required vary by tool but often include broad read access (e.g.
Inspector:*)
What are the alternatives?
Rather than a DIY approach with open source tools, you can:
- Use the cloud provider's native tools like Amazon Inspector
- Deploy a commercial Vulnerability Management as a Service platform like Qualys or Tenable
- Outsource some or all of TVM to an MSSP
- Accept the risk and rely on other controls like Web Application Firewalls and EDR
These can reduce the in-house effort but come at a cost and loss of some customization.
