Cyber threats are a reality around the world and represent a major challenge for technology professionals who need to ensure the security of an organization's data and all the people who work in it.
Day after day we are bombarded by news about virtual attacks, which cause a lot of financial losses, as well as a bad reputation for business, after all consumers usually do not trust brands that have suffered some kind of attack.
Therefore, data security is one of the factors that most cause concern in all institutions around the world, whether small, medium or large, because cyber criminals usually act in all areas.
Therefore, there has been so much talk that prevention is the best choice and investing in information security should be a priority for companies. Awareness is a construction of several factors, which together help the organization to protect itself.
One of the vulnerability control mechanisms is done through internal devices, so technology professionals can create reports and understand the risks that each employee can offer to the company.
Through this data, it is possible to create much more effective and accurate awareness campaigns for your organization.
Cyberattacks
Before talking about vulnerability analysis, it is important that you understand that cyberattacks grow year after year and, despite being a worldwide problem, Brazil leads this ranking.
In the first half of 2023, Brazil was the country with the most cyberattacks in Latin America. There were 23 billion such incidents from January to July.
This data is revealed by the cybersecurity company Fortinet, which points out that the country has recorded about 36% of all cybersecurity incidents recorded in Latin America and the Caribbean this year alone.
Much of this problem is due to the low investment of companies in cybersecurity that do not take this problem so seriously, which causes these institutions to suffer major consequences.
Therefore, it is essential that technology professionals see the risks that exist for their companies.
What is vulnerability analysis?
Now that you understand how cyberattacks are a big risk for companies, let's explain to you what vulnerability analysis actually is.
We can define vulnerability analysis as a process of identifying vulnerabilities present in the technological structure of an institution, which ends up exposing threats to the security of an infrastructure.
These threats create gaps in the security of the institution, which allows the action of cybercriminals.
Therefore, through this analysis it is possible to know what are the weaknesses of your organization, this enables the adoption of more effective measures for the correction of problems.
Another positive point is that through this process, technology professionals can perform corrections more effectively and thus avoid cyberattacks.
When performing analysis, technology professionals need to consider any system and infrastructure that handles or traffics data, such as:
Sites;
Web applications;
Mobile applications;
Wireless networks;
Internal and external network.
For everyone is subject to some vulnerability.
The main objective of this analysis is to find flaws that, in some way, can expose the vulnerabilities of the security system and thus cause some cyberattack.
By obtaining this information, the technology team can identify the possible risks and thus create control mechanisms.
It is important to understand that data alone does not make a big difference, it is necessary to create an awareness program through this information.
For example, if you've identified a significant number of employees who don't update their mobile devices, you can create campaigns explaining the importance that system updates have for data security.
How do vulnerabilities arise?
Understand that vulnerabilities arise in various ways, they can be associated with hardware and software components, for example, where a simple system update made available by the device manufacturer itself can solve the problem.
It can also arise when connecting to an unknown wifi network, when clicking on some suspicious website or through the use of weak passwords.
It is necessary to point out that vulnerabilities can arise at any time, so the analysis must be done continuously. With this, the organization can protect itself more effectively from attacks.
Importance of vulnerability analysis
When we talk about vulnerability analysis in internal devices, know that this is an extremely important data for the IT team, because it is through this information that it will be possible to reduce impacts and failures in the security of the organization.
This data is fundamental for the analysis of all people, but especially for those employees who work in higher positions.
After all, the most important and high-risk information is in the hands of these people, so if a director's cell phone is hacked, the data present on his device offers more risks to the company.
Therefore, it is essential that all people are aware of this risk, because depending on your position and the data you have access to, information leakage can affect the organization in a more serious way.
In this way, vulnerability analysis can anticipate corrections of possible flaws that can compromise in some way the cybersecurity of an organization. In addition, with this information, it is possible to ensure continuous improvement in the IT infrastructure.
By performing vulnerability analysis, technology professionals are able to raise the security levels of technological structures.
Thus ensuring the mitigation of risks and initiating the process of acculturation of teams in cybersecurity topics.
Vulnerability Analysis Steps
Know that the vulnerability analysis is done in a few steps, initially it is important to identify all IT assets and thus scan for vulnerability.
Soon after, it is necessary to evaluate the vulnerabilities found, so that they can be treated effectively, these are the basic and initial steps of the whole process.
In risk assessment, you need to locate and classify corporate assets, such as servers and mobile devices. Remember that any type of media that could be targeted by cyberattacks needs to be classified.
After the risk analysis, the second step is the vulnerability analysis, with the information in hand, the technology professional can create a model with the main threats to your organization and the degree of probability of these attacks.
Carrying out this process and identifying vulnerabilities brings a number of benefits to both technology teams and companies, they are:
Speed in the identification of failures;
Business continuity;
Improvement in data reliability and integrity;
Assistance in improving security policies.
Not to mention that all this information is extremely important for organizations and their teams, as mentioned it is through these actions that it is possible to intensify awareness programs.
In this way, information technology professionals are able to create personalized campaigns for each team according to the degree of vulnerability, send warnings and demonstrate the importance of preventive actions, making people understand how these risks are harmful to the institution.
Employees often do not understand the risks that their mobile device or computer can pose to the organization, and how basic actions are methods of preventing these attacks.
The awareness program needs to reinforce this information, as any device that has access to the organization's data is a potential risk of cyberattack.
Phishx and vulnerability analysis
The PhishX tool in addition to providing several features such as: creation and execution of campaigns, firing of communications, simulation tests among others, it also performs vulnerability analysis.
In this analysis, several data are collected that help identify risks, so that organizations have control over the information of the employees' devices, whether they have received the system updates or not.
It is also possible to have control of the browser that this device usually accesses, which provider, IP, whether the computer used is approved or not, whether this person is accessing the company's data through the personal computer, the company, or someone else.
With this, the platform provides a general mapping, with all the crucial information so that technology professionals can identify and thus mitigate all the risks offered to the institution.
All this information follows the LGPD and the data is collected securely following standards used worldwide.
Often information security does not receive the attention it deserves, this is a big mistake of organizations, because data leaks have serious consequences that can harm the company.
Whether in the market, among its employees and especially with customers, the leakage of information makes consumers distrust the organization, after all, no one wants to hand over their data to a company that may suffer from cyberattacks.
This makes the organization unreliable, which causes it to lose financial assets and reputation.
Therefore, it is essential that companies start the awareness process, collecting data, information, performing vulnerability analysis, creating campaigns. This helps demonstrate to your employees the importance of prevention.
It is critical that everyone understands how cyberattacks are real risks to the functioning of organizations. When an attack happens, all sectors are impacted, which causes a series of damages both in the reputation of this company and in its financial additives.
Start the acculturation process on cybersecurity, adopt advanced solutions like PhishX to protect your assets, data, and operations. With this, your company protects itself from these attacks and stays ahead of cyber threats.
Want to know more about how PhishX can help your company with vulnerability analysis and other indicators? Come and see our ecosystem, contact our sales team.
