How do you measure vulnerability and patching performance?

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Vulnerability and patching performance are key indicators of how well you are managing your cyber risk and responding to incidents. But how do you measure them effectively and consistently? In this article, we will explore some of the methods and metrics that can help you assess your vulnerability and patching performance and improve your incident response capabilities.

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1 Why measure vulnerability and patching performance?

Vulnerability and patching performance are not only important for compliance and audit purposes, but also for enhancing your security posture and resilience. By measuring your vulnerability and patching performance, you can identify and prioritize the most critical and exposed assets, track and reduce the time to remediate vulnerabilities, and evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of your patch management process. Moreover, you can benchmark your performance against industry standards and best practices, and demonstrate your value and progress to stakeholders.

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Masoumeh (Masi) Mousavi

Cybersecurity Specialist | Crypto & Cyber Crime Investigator | M.S. Cybersecurity Technology | CompTIA Security+
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We can measure vulnerability and patching performance using a reporting framework that collects, analyzes, visualizes, and presents data and metrics. When creating reports, we can: -Define the objectives, scope, frequency, and audience -Use dashboards and charts to show trends, patterns, and insights -Highlight key performance indicators (KPIs) and achievements -Align reports with incident response goals Solicit feedback from stakeholders We also can use a configuration management record to document all the details about patches, tests, and configuration changes. Using these documents, we can determine whether immediate action is necessary to mitigate a vulnerability.

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Bennie L. Cleveland Jr. "Bj" CCISO, CISM, CISA, CRISC, CHFI, EDRP, CIPM

Cybersecurity Leader - Incident Management | ISO 27001:2022 LA | Threat Intelligence | Digital Forensics | Enterprise Security | IAM | BCP-DR | Vulnerability Management | Enterprise Risk | GRC | Cyber Adjunct
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Measuring vulnerability and patching performance involves: - Coverage: Assess the percentage of systems scanned for vulnerabilities. - Discovery Rate: Track how quickly new vulnerabilities are found. - Time to Patch: Measure the average time taken to apply patches. - Deployment Success: Monitor the percentage of patches successfully deployed. - Compliance: Assess the percentage of systems compliant with patching policies. - Remediation Rate: Measure how quickly vulnerabilities are addressed. - Rollback Rate: Monitor the frequency of patch rollbacks. - Impact: Evaluate the impact of patching on system performance.

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Farukh Ismailov

Logistics Safety Engineer @ NCOC N.V. | IOSH MS | Risk Management | HSE Competency Assurance | Compliance
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By tracking these metrics, you can pinpoint and prioritize critical assets, expedite vulnerability remediation, and assess the efficacy of your patch management process. Benchmarking against industry standards not only highlights your performance but also underscores your commitment to security. This proactive approach enhances resilience, allows for continuous improvement, and provides clear evidence of your progress and value to stakeholders.

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2 How to measure vulnerability performance?

Measuring vulnerability performance is often done through the use of vulnerability scanners and tools that scan networks and systems for known vulnerabilities and assign them a severity score based on their impact and exploitability. Metrics for measuring vulnerability performance include vulnerability coverage (percentage of assets scanned regularly and comprehensively), vulnerability density (average number of vulnerabilities per asset or per asset group), vulnerability severity (distribution of vulnerabilities by severity level), vulnerability age (average time a vulnerability remains unpatched or unresolved), and vulnerability remediation rate (percentage of vulnerabilities remediated or mitigated within a given time frame).

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Kendrick Conner

IT and Security Executive | Providing a High Level of Enterprise IT and Security in Cost Effective Ways | Supporting Cloud and AI Environments
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Vulnerability management is boring. But very necessary. To quickly see what you are dealing with, look at the average number of vulnerabilities per reporting asset, then follow it as a trendline. Once you have a program in place look for vulnerabilities by technology (e.g. Adobe, Java, Microsoft), then target the top three (hint; those are probably the top three). Once you have a program in place track your vulnerabilities for age. The longer they go without patching or the older they are the higher the risk. Set vulnerabilities for automatic severity increase if not patched within a year.

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Farukh Ismailov

Logistics Safety Engineer @ NCOC N.V. | IOSH MS | Risk Management | HSE Competency Assurance | Compliance
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Key metrics include vulnerability coverage—reflecting the extent of asset scanning, vulnerability density—indicating the average number of vulnerabilities per asset, and severity distribution—showing how vulnerabilities are spread by impact level. Additionally, monitor vulnerability age to track how long issues remain unpatched, and remediation rate to gauge the efficiency of your response efforts. These metrics offer a comprehensive view of your vulnerability landscape, guiding targeted improvements and demonstrating your proactive approach to security.

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3 How to measure patching performance?

Patching performance is a measure of how well you are applying patches and updates to your systems and applications to fix vulnerabilities and improve functionality. You can use patch management tools and systems to automate and monitor the patch deployment process, as well as report on the patch status and compliance. The metrics used to measure patching performance include patch coverage (the percentage of assets that are patched or updated regularly), patch compliance (the percentage of assets that are compliant with the policy and standards), patch latency (the average time between the release of a patch and its deployment), patch success rate (the percentage of patches deployed successfully), and patch rollback rate (the percentage of patches removed due to errors or issues).

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Kendrick Conner

IT and Security Executive | Providing a High Level of Enterprise IT and Security in Cost Effective Ways | Supporting Cloud and AI Environments
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You also need to track unsuccessful patches. Quite often a patch will get closed out as patched but either the patch didn't take or the configuration was done incorrectly. And measure the time from patch ticket creation to completion and confirmation.

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Farukh Ismailov

Logistics Safety Engineer @ NCOC N.V. | IOSH MS | Risk Management | HSE Competency Assurance | Compliance
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Key metrics include patch coverage, which measures the percentage of assets updated regularly, and patch compliance, reflecting adherence to policy standards. Track patch latency to assess the time from release to deployment, and patch success rate to gauge the effectiveness of your patching efforts. Additionally, monitor patch rollback rate to identify issues and improve your deployment process. Utilizing these metrics through patch management tools ensures a proactive, efficient approach to keeping your systems secure and functional.

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4 How to improve vulnerability and patching performance?

In order to improve your vulnerability and patching performance, you need to have a clear and consistent strategy and process that is in line with your incident response goals and objectives. To do this, you should establish a vulnerability and patch management policy and framework that outlines the roles, responsibilities, standards, procedures, and tools for identifying, assessing, prioritizing, remediating, and reporting on vulnerabilities and patches. Additionally, you should implement a vulnerability and patch management lifecycle that covers the phases of discovery, analysis, planning, testing, deployment, verification, and review. Automation and integration tools can help streamline the process and reduce human errors. Furthermore, regular vulnerability and patch assessments should be conducted to measure your performance and identify areas for improvement. Finally, it is important to communicate with stakeholders and teams to ensure awareness of the activities and outcomes.

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Kendrick Conner

IT and Security Executive | Providing a High Level of Enterprise IT and Security in Cost Effective Ways | Supporting Cloud and AI Environments
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Your vulnerability management program should have at least one dedicated resource (given a large enough sized company of $1B revenue or more). Business owners and IT should be involved in every patch that impacts their systems. Ownership of process and patching specifics such as time to patch, rollback process, who will implement, etc. Patching can bring down a system or application and you don't want the business unaware of something that can bring down a service.

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5 How to report on vulnerability and patching performance?

Reporting on your vulnerability and patching performance is critical for demonstrating your incident response capabilities and value to stakeholders and management. To do this, you need a reporting framework and system that can collect, analyze, visualize, and present your vulnerability and patching data and metrics in a meaningful way. When creating reports, define the objectives, scope, frequency, and audience; use dashboards and charts to show trends, patterns, and insights; highlight key performance indicators (KPIs) and achievements; align reports with incident response goals; and solicit feedback from stakeholders. Doing so will help you establish how your vulnerability and patching performance contributes to your security posture and resilience.

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6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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How do you measure vulnerability and patching performance?

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1 Why measure vulnerability and patching performance?

2 How to measure vulnerability performance?

3 How to measure patching performance?

4 How to improve vulnerability and patching performance?

5 How to report on vulnerability and patching performance?

6 Here’s what else to consider

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