About 75% of security professionals have witnessed a surge in cyberattacks in the past year, a trend that shows no signs of slowing down. (Source: CFO) As a cybersecurity professional, the security of your organization’s assets is a top priority.
According to a recent survey, 80% of IT security leaders claimed that they suffered at least one cybersecurity incident in the past year, whereas 20% reported that they were hit at least five or six times annually. The same survey revealed that cybersecurity professionals identified a few security challenges their businesses faced, including – a lack of visibility into systems and IoT, a lack of timely threat intelligence information, and poor integration of cybersecurity tools. Your organization can avoid similar challenges and improve security by deploying top vulnerability scanners.
In this article, we will explore how to choose the best vulnerability scanner and list the top 10 recommended by Gartner for cybersecurity professionals. Before we begin, let us briefly examine what vulnerability scanners are.
What are Vulnerability Scanners?
Vulnerability scanners are cybersecurity tools that continually monitor networks, applications, databases, and cloud environments to detect any threats or weaknesses that can cause severe harm to the organization.
Your organization can choose a vulnerability scanner based on its security needs. There are five types of vulnerability scanners – database, host-based, wireless, network, and web application scanners. Most vulnerability scanners have automated vulnerability scanning capabilities, which can help your organization detect threats within minutes. If you wish to invest in the best vulnerability scanner, your organization can always experiment with an online vulnerability scanner to test its efficiency before making a hefty investment.
Let us explore how your organization can choose the best vulnerability scanning tool.
How to Choose the Best Vulnerability Scanner?
While we will list Gartner’s recommended top vulnerability scanners, your organization’s top vulnerability scanner would be the one that caters to its specific needs. Here are a few factors you can consider before choosing the right vulnerability scanning tool for your organization:
Features
Your role as a cybersecurity professional is crucial when selecting a vulnerability scanner for your organization. Each tool has unique features and abilities. By identifying your organization’s security priorities and needs, you can narrow down the best vulnerability scanner that empowers you to protect your network and application assets.
Performance
A crucial factor to consider when choosing your cybersecurity vulnerability scanning tool is its performance. Most organizations have different IT infrastructures and various data environments, based on which you can choose a scanner best suited for your infrastructure. For example, if all your organizational assets are located within your organization’s networks, you can opt for a network vulnerability scanner that you can deploy across networks.
Ease of Use
The function of vulnerability scanning in cybersecurity is to simplify security processes for security leaders and professionals. So, naturally, the vulnerability scanners you choose for your organization must be easy to use, have a user-friendly interface, and have relevant workflows. If your network security scanner is challenging to operate, it might become counterproductive to maintaining your organization’s security posture.
Customer Support
Deploying a vulnerability scanner for the first time across your organization’s networks and applications may be overwhelming, so you must opt for a vulnerability scanner with top-notch customer support. Having a knowledgeable and accessible customer support team when deploying and operating your vulnerability scanner helps your organization make the most of the tool and enhances overall security posture.
Integrations
As mentioned above, one of the common challenges faced by security teams is the need for better integration of cybersecurity tools or web application vulnerability scanners. Hence, your organization must look for a vulnerability scanner that can easily integrate with your existing applications and learning management systems (LMS) to facilitate smooth processes and achieve operational efficiency.
Considering these factors, let’s examine Gartner’s recommended list of top vulnerability scanners for your organization.
Top 10 Vulnerability Scanners for Cybersecurity Professionals
Here are Gartner’s recommended list of top vulnerability scanners for cybersecurity professionals:
1. Tenable Nessus
Tenable Nessus is a vulnerability assessment tool that aids security professionals in identifying existing threats and vulnerabilities within their organizations. This tool caters to both medium and large enterprises across various industries. Some of its notable features are its customizable reports, pre-built policies and templates, complete visibility into vulnerabilities, including misconfigurations, software flaws, malware, etc., and real-time updates that help businesses implement remediation measures without wasting time.
2. InsightVM by Rapid7
InsightVM is a vulnerability management platform offered by Rapid7. It helps organizations’ security teams remediate vulnerabilities and improve security measures. The platform is known for its automation capabilities, including live dashboards that can monitor user activity and assets with accurate risk scores. Moreover, this easy-to-use platform integrates with popular platforms such as AWS, Splunk, ServiceNow, etc.
3. SanerNow CVEM
SanerNow Continuous Vulnerability and Exposure Management (CVEM) is an advanced vulnerability management platform that detects vulnerabilities, asset exposures, security posture anomalies, and misconfigurations across your organization’s infrastructures. This platform offers automated vulnerability scanning features along with continuous compliance monitoring. The platform also helps organizations apply remediation controls automatically and maintains an updated record of risk posture assessment.
4. Fortra Vulnerability Manager
Frontline Vulnerability Manager is an agentless scanning service that scans organizations’ networks and discovers unknown assets and known risks. This tool offers flexible deployment across on-premise, cloud, and hybrid environments. Its most unique feature is its automated scanning capabilities, which support organizations’ security protocols and compliance requirements. Moreover, this vulnerability scanner offers cross-contextual reporting that enables organizations to gain deeper insight into where their sensitive data resides.
5. RidgeBot
RidgeBot is an automated penetration testing solution that locates vulnerabilities and prioritizes remediation efforts to mitigate the associated risks. This solution is completely automated and requires no human involvement. Moreover, it continuously scans your organization’s attack surfaces to detect potential or existing threats. An advantage of deploying RidgeBot is that it generates zero false positives, a common challenge when using vulnerability scanners. This helps security teams focus on streamlining remediation measures to secure business assets.
6. Cisco Vulnerability Management
Cisco vulnerability management is a platform that enables your organization to prioritize risk mitigation processes. Its advanced algorithms support risk-based asset management and intelligent threat detection, intercepting the implications of poorly managed high-risk assets that could lead to a data breach. Cisco’s unified dashboard helps your organization gain contextual insight into its security measures and generate accurate, comprehensive reports to help security teams demonstrate their progress to stakeholders.
7. Greenbone Vulnerability Management
Greenbone is an open-source vulnerability scanner for businesses of all sizes, especially those in the public sector. It offers over 150,000 automated vulnerability tests that help organizations recognize security threats. Greenbone offers a three-tiered solution based on data environments—a virtual, hardware, and cloud solution. The most significant advantage of using Greenbone is that organizations can test the scanner free of cost with its community version, and if they find it compatible with their organizational needs, they can opt for the professional version.
8. Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management
Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management offers both agentless and agent-based vulnerability scanning services. With its extended detection and response (XDR) and security information and event management (SIEM) capabilities, this unified portal helps organizations detect cyber threats and mitigate their severity before they fall into the wrong hands. This service provides continuous scanning capabilities across your organization’s cloud services, networks, applications, etc. Its intuitive dashboard offers organizations a single view of all vulnerabilities based on their risks. Moreover, this service automatically blocks any vulnerable versions of applications and informs its users with customized alerts.
9. Falcon Spotlight by CrowdStrike
Falcon Spotlight by CrowdStrike is a cloud-native, agentless platform that helps organizations detect common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs). The platform requires no additional infrastructure or software, so organizations can quickly deploy it across their data environments. Its advanced AI-powered model enables it to automate vulnerability scanning processes and offer threat intelligence capabilities, allowing organizations to detect exposures in real time. Its most distinctive feature is seamless integration with its easy-to-use workflow tool, Falcon Fusion, which provides comprehensive vulnerability patching and remediation visibility.
10. Intruder
Intruder is primarily a cloud-based vulnerability scanner offering network monitoring and web application scanning capabilities. Its automated scanning and seamless integration features enable complete visibility into organizations’ security flaws. A distinctive feature of this scanner is its intelligent threat interpretation system that helps security teams prioritize and redirect remediation efforts to protect organizational assets.
While we have listed the top 10 vulnerability scanners for cybersecurity professionals, this is not an exhaustive list. Your organization must thoroughly examine the features and capabilities of vulnerability scanners before deploying them across your data environments.
We have covered how to choose the best vulnerability scanner for your organization and listed Gartner’s recommended top scanners. With this information at your fingertips, your organization must begin eliminating flaws and streamlining its security strategy. Get started today!
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ComplyTec has provided IT solutions to various North American organizations, including Fortune 100s and government agencies. We bring vulnerability management and security expertise to your organization while enhancing its operational efficiency.
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FAQs
1. What is a web application vulnerability scanner?
A web application vulnerability scanner is an automated tool that scans web applications for common threats and vulnerabilities. It scans the entire web application and analyzes each file to recognize hidden vulnerabilities such as software flaws, cross-site request forgery, SQL injections, etc. Your organization can use a website vulnerability scanner to scan your websites for any risks.
2. What is an open-source vulnerability scanner?
An open-source vulnerability scanner is a free tool that helps scan your organization’s networks, systems, and applications for misconfigurations, malware, or security flaws. These scanners are a cost-effective option for organizations restricted by budgets and looking to streamline their security measures.
3. What are the different types of vulnerability scanners?
The different types of vulnerability scanners include host-based, wireless, database, application-based, and network vulnerability scanners. Your organization can opt for either one or a combination of these scanners to detect and amend significant security flaws.
4. What are the limitations of vulnerability scanners?
While vulnerability scanners are incredible tools for threat identification and remediation, they have their own limitations. Some limitations of vulnerability scanners include false positives, lack of contextual information or reporting, limited scope of remediation, and difficulties in scanning single-page applications.
5. How do vulnerability scanners detect threats?
Vulnerability scanning in cybersecurity is a process that detects threats and weaknesses by scanning networks, systems, applications, and databases. They recognize vulnerabilities and cross-examine them against a known vulnerability database to identify common vulnerabilities. Once vulnerability scanners have detected the threats, they generate detailed reports on identified vulnerabilities, associated risks, severity levels, and remediation processes. These reports help cyber security professionals take immediate action to secure business assets.