| | APRIL - 2021ENTERPRISE SECURITY8IN MY OPINIONVulnerability management has served as a foundational capability since the inception of information security. Some foundational components, such as antivirus software, have gone through multiple tangible evolutions with changes in moniker like antivirus, anti-malware and Endpoint Detection and Response. On the surface, vulnerability management may not seem to have advanced much. Many professionals who log into network vulnerability scanners for the first time in over a decade will find familiar interfaces. And even the vulnerability findings will look familiar if the environment they're targeting has enough legacy systems unpatched systems (which they often do). This may lead people to believe there is little by the way of innovation in the vulnerability management space.This perspective is far from the truth. In fact, innovation within vulnerability management is rapid and continuous. So where is innovation happening within vulnerability management?Automating vulnerability discoveryOne of the most apparent areas of vulnerability management innovation is occurring within vulnerability discovery. Enterprises are amid rapid IT transformations along with their digital business transformations, accelerating adoption of containerization and cloud technology. The attentive enterprises see the need to raise their capabilities in finding vulnerabilities or misconfigurations that are emerging within these newly adopted environments. The result has been a flood of new technologies such as those capable of navigating containers and cloud environments in order to assess configurations and implementations for issues. This highlights probably the most natural environment of innovation within vulnerability management. New technologies often require new methods for vulnerability discovery. This area of innovation is largely rapid because it is highly contested. Enterprises that fail to maintain pace with the required innovation to discover vulnerabilities in new technologies will often find that malicious attackers are eager to capitalize on their lack of understanding and adoption.This is not the only arena where vulnerability discovery is occurring however. Rather, Innovation within vulnerability discovery can be seen in how vulnerabilities are found in addition to where they are found.Innovations in vulnerability discovery throughout DevSecOps processes are assisting enterprises in finding vulnerabilities in ways. For example, offline application scanning, such as analyzing code within repositories for the determination of vulnerabilities has also seen significant innovation. New solutions analyze code within TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE EMERGING ADVANCES IN VULNERABILITY MANAGEMENT By Joe Nocera, Leader and partner of PwC's Cyber & Privacy Innovation Institute
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