To justify investment in implementing any control, a business driver is absolutely essential. A business driver defines why a particular control needs to be implemented. Some of the typical business drivers for justifying the vulnerability management program are described in the following sections.
Business drivers for vulnerability management
Regulatory compliance
For more than a decade, almost all businesses have become highly dependent on the use of technology. Ranging from financial institutions to healthcare organizations, there has been a large dependency on the use of digital systems. This has, in turn, triggered the industry regulators to put forward mandatory requirements that the organizations need to comply. Noncompliance to any of the requirements specified by the regulator attracts heavy fines and bans.
The following are some of the regulatory standards that demand the organizations to perform vulnerability assessments:
- Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX)
- Statements on Standards for Attestation Engagements 16 (SSAE 16/SOC 1 (https://www.ssae-16.com/soc-1/))
- Service Organization Controls (SOC) 2/3
- Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
- Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
- Gramm Leach Bliley Compliance (GLBA)
- Federal Information System Controls Audit Manual (FISCAM)
Satisfying customer demands
Today's customers have become more selective in terms of what offerings they get from the technology service provider. A certain customer might be operating in one part of the world with certain regulations that demand vulnerability assessments. The technology service provider might be in another geographical zone but must perform the vulnerability assessment to ensure the customer being served is compliant. So, customers can explicitly demand the technology service provider to conduct vulnerability assessments.
Response to some fraud/incident
Organizations around the globe are constantly subject to various types of attacks originating from different locations. Some of these attacks succeed and cause potential damage to the organization. Based on the historical experience of internal and/or external fraud/attacks, an organization might choose to implement a complete vulnerability management program.
For example, the WannaCry ransomware that spread like fire, exploited a vulnerability in the SMB protocol of Windows systems. This attack must have triggered the implementation of a vulnerability management program across many affected organizations.
Gaining a competitive edge
Let's consider a scenario wherein there are two technology vendors selling a similar e-commerce platform. One vendor has an extremely robust and documented vulnerability management program that makes their product inherently resilient against common attacks. The second vendor has a very good product but no vulnerability management program. A wise customer would certainly choose the first vendor product as the product has been developed in line with a strong vulnerability management process.
Safeguarding/protecting critical infrastructures
This is the most important of all the previous business drivers. An organization may simply proactively choose to implement a vulnerability management program, irrespective of whether it has to comply with any regulation or satisfy any customer demand. The proactive approach works better in security than the reactive approach.
For example, an organization might have payment details and personal information of its customers and doesn't want to put this data at risk of unauthorized disclosure. A formal vulnerability management program would help the organization identify all probable risks and put controls in place to mitigate this.
