Most cybersecurity strategies today have a short-term, reactive focus, putting emphasis on detecting and chasing down the latest vulnerabilities. However, we often forget there is backlog of historic vulnerabilities enabling most of the cyberattacks pummeling organizations. Over 76% of vulnerabilities being exploited by ransomware gangs were discovered more than three years ago! Something isn’t working.
The answer lies in a more centralized, automated, and risk-based approach to managing vulnerabilities. (Analysts call it a paradigm shift, I call it common sense.) The shortest, most effective route to achieving this “shift” is through a dedicated Vulnerability Operations Center (VOC). Think of a VOC as an integrated operational center within – or alongside – your SOC that exclusively focuses on the prevention, detection, analysis, prioritization, and remediation of security flaws impacting your IT environment. While a SOC manages alerts and incidents, a VOC manages vulnerability data and creates rules to fix them before they turn into full-blown incidents. Imagine squashing ransomware well before you get to the ransom part.
