Importance Of Network Vulnerability Assesment Tools

By Author: Alice Coope
Total Articles: 213
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Every network has vulnerabilities, but the question is how to spot them? Today enterprises with the help of network vulnerability assessment tools (NVA) are able to look at each single IP address on the network and test the device or service using the address. Furthermore, today's organizations require assessment tools that operate from the outside in, so that they can examine the network the way any third party intruder will. By making use of regular assessments, organizations can halt all the network openings before the hackers locate them. According to Mr. Jesper Jurcenoks, CTO of NetVigilance, the maker of network vulnerability assessment software “regular NVA use gives you the most important security information: what's on your system, and what your systems look like to hackers. Let's look first at common myths about NVA”.

Network Vulnerability Myths
A network vulnerability myth is that you need a port scanner, but those scanners does not proactively probe the service at the port for security compliance. The other myths are that you do not require a network vulnerability assessment tool ...
... if you already have an anti-virus protection or an intrusion detection system. Both these tools are of equal importance as they help to minimize the impact of a security breach or warn you prior to a data theft, they do not altogether help you avert the security breaches.

PCI DSS reports reveal that enterprises with millions of credit card records to protect have been doing a great job. These companies with numerous records have a way to go in order to reach an optimum level of security. The PCI task force is working in order to develop a new set of guidelines that will be released soon.

Industry Solutions for NVA Tools
In the recent past eminent data center infrastructure management companies have introduced advanced NVA tools that help to leverage the standard benchmark and vendor specific configuration “best practice” policies. These tools help to automate the vulnerability assessment procedure and helps to process against actual configuration data. Furthermore the IP Services abstraction information is stored in a repository and NVA tools can identify direct and indirect configuration–oriented vulnerabilities from the configuration policies.

Advanced NVA tools with its vulnerability metrics and report statistics helps to mine the data from the repository. It helps to automate the vendor specific security advisories. Furthermore, it can be converted easily to a policy and then installed into the system. Hence, a network-wide security advisory vulnerability assessment can be completed within few minutes.

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