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With the popularity of innovations like APIs, multi-cloud deployments, and AI-generated code, your organization’s attack surface is likely growing.
While there are different ways to test infrastructure and software security after development, those vulnerabilities could make it into the final product undetected, leading to dangerous security gaps. That’s why vulnerability management is so crucial.
Let’s explore what vulnerability management tools can do to protect your organization and take a look at some popular options.
What Are Vulnerability Management Tools, and How Do They Work?
Vulnerability management tools detect, assess, and remediate security vulnerabilities in an organization’s IT infrastructure. They help security teams proactively identify potential weaknesses and mitigate risks before cybercriminals can exploit them.
These tools are considered preventative security measures, meaning that they aren’t a replacement for runtime security tools like anti-malware solutions. But together—and alongside other tools like host intrusion prevention systems—they harden your infrastructure by limiting vectors of attack. This reduces the chances of catastrophic data loss or leaks.
6 Key Features of Vulnerability Management Tools
While there are many solutions on the market—each with its own defining characteristics—the best vulnerability management software tends to share some common features:
- Dynamic discovery: IT environments often contain many assets across multiple deployment models. Securing all of this manually is a challenge. Instead, vulnerability management solutions can discover hosts and assets across your entire environment, alerting you and noting when new ones are created.
- Comprehensive vulnerability scanning: Modern vulnerability management tools perform thorough scans across all assets, including networks, systems, and endpoints to identify security gaps and misconfigurations.
- Risk assessment and prioritization: IT environments have countless opportunities for vulnerabilities. Effective tools assess the severity of each one and prioritize fixes based on the level of risk they pose to the organization.
- Integration with other security solutions: You likely have some existing security infrastructure in place. Seamless integration with these tools, like security information and event management (SIEM) systems, firewalls, and endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions, enhances your overall security posture.
- Remediation guidance: Security teams need actionable guidelines to address any discovered vulnerabilities. Many of the top vulnerability management tools automatically remediate issues by applying patches and isolating vulnerable systems when possible.
- Continuous monitoring and reporting: New vulnerabilities appear all the time, and attackers can exploit them with incredible speed—sometimes before you even spot them. Manual scans aren’t enough to keep organizations safe, which is why vulnerability management tools typically support continuous monitoring and detailed reporting capabilities.
5 Vulnerability Management Tools
Here are some popular vulnerability management tools and what they do:
1. Nmap
Nmap—which stands for network mapper—is an open-source network and port vulnerability scanner that supports nearly every operating system, including Windows, macOS, and Linux. As the name suggests, it rapidly scans and maps networks, identifying firewall rules and other configurations to catch potential security issues.
Because its primary interface is through the command line, Nmap has no inherent visual UI (though some are available from nmap.org and third-party developers) and may not be the simplest vulnerability management solution to use. But it is effective and can run custom scripts to scan for highly specific issues.
Key features:
- Advanced network mapping and port discovery
- TCP/IP/OS fingerprinting
- Support for many popular operating systems
- A large and active online community
2. Intruder
Intruder is a cloud-based vulnerability scanner that uses external network monitoring to give you full visibility of your environment’s perimeter. The solution’s integration with Drata is particularly helpful for ensuring regulatory compliance and automating reports.
Intruder’s simple, user-friendly interface and focus on intelligent risk prioritization make it a great choice for organizations that want to start resolving vulnerabilities quickly with a minimal learning curve.
Key features:
- Simple cloud-based deployment
- Continuous monitoring and alerting
- Risk-based vulnerability prioritization
- Proactive protection against zero-day threats
- Seamless compliance reporting
3. Qualys VMDR
Qualys is a leading cloud-based security and compliance platform with a robust vulnerability management solution. It’s popular with enterprises, due in part to its scalability and ability to protect both on-premises and cloud environments.
Qualys VMDR—which stands for vulnerability management, detection, and response—flags vulnerabilities and misconfigurations that could expose organizations to dangerous cyberthreats. It matches real-time threat data with information about your environment, triaging risks and helping your security team prioritize the most critical issues.
Key features:
- Cloud-based, scalable architecture
- Continuous monitoring and real-time threat intelligence
- Risk scoring and prioritization
- Automated patch management
- Smooth integration with additional security tools
4. Rapid7 InsightVM
Rapid7 InsightVM is a comprehensive vulnerability management solution that assesses risks in real time. InsightVM is part of Rapid7’s Command platform, which integrates a number of security-minded solutions into a single interface.
One standout feature of InsightVM is its tools to support security program management. Rapid7’s Remediation Projects provide visibility into the responsibilities of security and IT teams, assign tasks, and measure the progress of remediation work.
Key features:
- Continuous vulnerability assessment and monitoring
- Dynamic risk scoring and prioritization
- Automated remediation
- Support for a wide range of infrastructures
- Detailed compliance and audit reporting
5. Aikido Security
Aikido offers a comprehensive vulnerability management solution with a focus on automation and efficiency, making it easy for your security pros to identify and address critical threats with speed. Aikido is designed to minimize false positives and unnecessary or duplicated alerts, helping teams focus their energy where it counts and slash operational risks before they impact the business.
Key features:
- Continuous monitoring and automated vulnerability detection
- Real-time threat intelligence and risk assessment
- User-friendly dashboard with remediation insights
- Integration with DevOps workflows
- Compliance with AICPA’s SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022 requirements
How to Choose the Right Vulnerability Management Tool: 6 Tips
Selecting the right vulnerability management tool for your organization depends on several factors. Here are some key considerations to keep in mind:
1. Coverage and Flexibility
Today’s IT environments are complex. Most organizations need vulnerability management solutions that support multiple popular operating systems and frameworks. Tools should also have the ability to deploy on-premises, in the cloud, or across a hybrid of both.
2. Asset Discovery
Because most organizations have a wide array of apps, containers, and databases, choose a vulnerability management solution that can automatically discover and inventory all of your software assets. This leads to more complete coverage without dangerous security gaps.
3. Risk Scoring and Prioritization
Not all threats are created equal. The best vulnerability management software uses real-time data, along with information about your environment and data sensitivity, to triage risks and help your teams focus their energy where it counts.
4. Automated Patching and Remediation Guidance
Limit burdens on your team by finding solutions that not only flag vulnerabilities, but automatically deploy patches and provide actionable guidance. This helps security pros address issues that can’t be resolved by machine alone.
5. User Experience
In modern DevSecOps, vulnerability management is a shared responsibility of security, operations, and development teams. Look for solutions that provide value to each of these roles and don’t conflict with your existing tools. If it’s hard to use, it can lead to gaps in your security coverage.
6. Compliance Requirements
Some compliance standards, such as Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards (DSS), have specific requirements when it comes to vulnerability management. Make sure your tool of choice supports compliance with all relevant industry standards and can generate reports in required formats.
Manage Software Vulnerabilities With Legit Security
The top vulnerability management tools can help you proactively address security gaps before attackers can exploit them or accidental leaks occur, reducing risk to your data, finances, and reputation. But that’s only one piece of the puzzle.
Legit Security’s ASPM platform adds software vulnerability management to the mix. With Legit, you manage all your application vulnerabilities in one place, integrate findings from SAST, SCA, secrets, and IAC scanning, and leverage rich context to prioritize and score risk. Ultimately, you find, fix, and prevent the application risk that matters most.
To learn more, schedule a product demo.