What is vulnerability management?

As organizations increasingly rely on open source software to drive innovation, it is more important than ever to employ a sound vulnerability management strategy. Ensuring that open source packages are secure from known vulnerabilities is crucial in maintaining the security of the application development process.

Vulnerability management is the process of identifying, evaluating, prioritizing, and addressing security weaknesses within an organization's software supply chain. The goal is to proactively mitigate potential risks before they can be exploited by malicious actors. This practice is essential in maintaining a robust security posture and ensuring compliance with regulatory standards.

Importance of managing open source vulnerabilities

• Widespread use of open source: Open source software is the de-facto platform for modern application development. In fact, studies have shown that approximately 98% of applications contain open source software components. Vulnerabilities in these components can have a cascading effect, potentially compromising multiple systems and applications due to the complexity and reach of open source dependencies.
  
  
• Publicly known vulnerabilities: Open source software vulnerabilities are often publicly disclosed, giving attackers ample opportunity to exploit them if not promptly addressed.
  
  
• Third party dependencies: Many applications depend on numerous third party libraries and frameworks. A single vulnerability in one of these dependencies can affect the entire software development lifecycle. For example, for many organizations impacted by the Log4Shell vulnerability, the Java-based logging utility, Log4j, showed up as a transitive dependency, rather than as a direct dependency. According to data tracked by Tidelift, log4j-core has over 3,600 dependent packages in the Java language ecosystem and over 20,900 dependent software repositories on public code collaboration platforms.
  
  
• Regulatory compliance: Managing vulnerabilities is crucial for adhering to industry standards and regulations, which mandate strict data protection and privacy measures. Read more about regulatory compliance in our section on cybersecurity regulatory compliance.

The six stages of the vulnerability management lifecycle

The vulnerability management lifecycle consists of six stages designed to systematically address security risks:

1. Identification: The first step involves discovering and documenting vulnerabilities in an organization’s software environment. This can be achieved through vulnerability scanning tools, penetration testing, and security audits. Key vulnerability information comes from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) National Vulnerability Database (NVD).
   
   
2. Assessment: Once identified, vulnerabilities must be assessed to determine their potential impact and likelihood of exploitation. This step involves risk analysis and prioritization based on factors like the severity of the vulnerability, the criticality of the affected asset, and the potential business impact. The NVD provides a Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) score which can be used to assist with assessment. This score ranges from 0 to 10, with 0 being minimal severity and 10 being the most severe.
   
   When assessing vulnerabilities, it is important to be mindful of false positives. These are real vulnerabilities, but their impact is determined based on specific usage criteria. False positives end up becoming a drain on developer time, often requiring work stoppages and rework to remediate issues that are not actually issues. This leads to developer burnout, lost time spent on investigation and rework, and with uncertainty around what is signal and what is noise, they can lead to a lack of trust. 
   
   To address this issue, Tidelift partners directly with the open source maintainers behind these packages and pays them to ensure that their packages meet enterprise standards around security, maintenance, and licensing. As part of this work, when vulnerabilities are identified from NVD or any other database, we ask maintainers to clearly indicate the extent and severity of being impacted by specific vulnerabilities. Additionally, they provide context for the vulnerability, including whether or not it is a false positive.
   
   
3. Remediation: After prioritizing vulnerabilities, organizations must take appropriate actions to remediate them. This could include patching software, updating configurations, or applying workarounds. The goal is to reduce the risk to an acceptable level.
   
   
4. Verification: After remediation, it’s essential to verify that the vulnerabilities have been successfully addressed. This can be done through re-scanning, penetration testing, or manual verification to ensure the effectiveness of the remediation efforts.
   
   
5. Reporting and internal documentation: Proper documentation of the entire process is crucial for auditing and compliance purposes. Detailed reports should include the vulnerabilities identified, the steps taken to remediate them, and the verification results.
   
   
6. Continuous monitoring: Vulnerability management is not a one-time effort but a continuous process. Organizations must regularly monitor their software environments for new vulnerabilities and update their vulnerability management strategies accordingly. This process should also include monitoring for early risk indicators of vulnerabilities, proactively identifying potentially problematic open source packages such as those that are marked end-of-life, deprecated, or abandoned. Without a security and maintenance plan, packages under these conditions have the potential to be compromised by a vulnerability, thus putting an organization’s code environment at risk.

Conclusion

Vulnerability management is a critical component of an organization's overall security strategy, especially in the context of open source software. By understanding and implementing a robust vulnerability management lifecycle, organizations can effectively mitigate security risks, protect their data, and maintain compliance with government and industry regulations. Proactive vulnerability management not only safeguards against potential threats but also enhances the reliability and trustworthiness of the open source software supply chain.