Vulnerability management

Vulnerability management is the "cyclical practice of identifying, classifying, remediating, and mitigating vulnerabilities", especially in software and firmware. Vulnerability management is integral to computer security and network security.

Vulnerabilities can be discovered with a vulnerability scanner, which analyzes a computer system in search of known vulnerabilities, such as open ports, insecure software configuration, and susceptibility to malware. Unknown vulnerabilities, such as a zero-day attack may be found with fuzz testing, which can identify certain kinds of vulnerabilities, such as a buffer overflow exploit with relevant test cases. Such analysis can be facilitated by test automation. In addition, antivirus software capable of heuristic analysis may discover undocumented malware if it finds software behaving suspiciously (such as attempting to overwrite a system file).

Correcting vulnerabilities may variously involve the installation of a patch, a change in network security policy, reconfiguration of software (such as a firewall), or educating users about social engineering.

See also

• Application security
• Full disclosure
• Long-term support
• IT risk
• Risk management