Why vulnerability prioritisation is vital (INFOGRAPHIC)

At RankedRight, we believe so strongly in the power of prioritisation that we built our whole business around it. The fact is that unless you’re a small startup with modest IT needs, it is simply not possible for your IT security team to tackle all the vulnerabilities facing your business. The only way to decrease your chance of a critical attack is to tackle them in order of priority to your business.

How big is the problem?  

To illustrate, we’ve created a vulnerability prioritisation infographic but here’s a little context on the challenges facing our industry.

In 2020, more security vulnerabilities were disclosed (18,103) than in any other year to date – an average of 50 per day, with the most common breaches being:

• Ransomware  
• Malware
• Denial of Service
• Phishing  

To keep on top of this, the cybersecurity industry would need to address its skills gap. It’s so big that research suggests the workforce would need to grow by 145% globally just to meet the demand.

This shortage is demoralising for cybersecurity teams, with more than half saying it is putting their business at moderate or extreme risk of attack.

To overcome the shortage, prioritisation is widely recognised as a solution in vulnerability management. However, not every business prioritises correctly, with some opting for the quickest and easiest patch, picking off vulnerabilities at random, or working through the list until burnout — none of this works.  

As we mentioned before, the only practical way of prioritising vulnerabilities is to tackle them in order of criticality to your business. In other words, the vulnerabilities which, if breached, could cause the most damage to your company should be handled first.  

This may seem easier said than done. How do you know how to sort through the vulnerabilities when your scanner identifies hundreds of new ones each day? That’s where RankedRight comes in. Our platform automatically ranks vulnerabilities based on your set rules, factoring in what is critical to the business and delegating it to the most appropriate person to resolve. This means teams spend less time on vulnerability administration and more time on keeping their company safe.

Time to take action. Book a demo here.

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