In this project, we simulate the implementation of a comprehensive vulnerability management program, from inception to completion.
Inception State: the organization has no existing policy or vulnerability management practices in place.
Completion State: a formal policy is enacted, stakeholder buy-in is secured, and a full cycle of organization-wide vulnerability remediation is successfully completed.
- Tenable (enterprise vulnerability management platform)
- Azure Virtual Machines (Nessus scan engine + scan targets)
- PowerShell & BASH (remediation scripts)
- Vulnerability Management Policy Draft Creation
- Mock Meeting: Policy Buy-In (Stakeholders)
- Policy Finalization and Senior Leadership Sign-Off
- Mock Meeting: Initial Scan Permission (Server Team)
- Initial Scan of Server Team Assets
- Vulnerability Assessment and Prioritization
- Distributing Remediations to Remediation Teams
- Mock Meeting: Post-Initial Discovery Scan (Server Team)
- Mock CAB Meeting: Implementing Remediations
- Remediation Round 1: Outdated Wireshark Removal
- Remediation Round 2: Insecure Protocols & Ciphers
- Remediation Round 3: Guest Account Group Membership
- Remediation Round 4: Windows OS Updates
- Redmediation Round 5: Oudated SQLite
- First Cycle Remediation Effort Summary
This phase focuses on drafting a Vulnerability Management Policy as a starting point for stakeholder engagement. The initial draft outlines scope, responsibilities, and remediation timelines, and may be adjusted based on feedback from relevant departments to ensure practical implementation before final approval by upper management.
Draft Policy
In this phase, a meeting with the server team introduces the draft Vulnerability Management Policy and assesses their capability to meet remediation timelines. Feedback leads to adjustments, like extending the critical remediation window from 48 hours to one week, ensuring collaborative implementation.
Oliver (Security Analyst): Good morning, Nate. How's everything been recently? I know everyone's been busy these last few weeks.
Nate (Server Team Manager): Good morning, Oliver. Yeah, it's been a bit hectic, but we're hanging in there. Thanks for asking. I had a chance to read through the policy draft, and overall it makes sense. However, with our current staffing, we can't meet the aggressive remediation timelines, especially the 48-hour window for critical vulnerabilities.
Oliver (Security Analyst): Yeah, I totally understand, it is a bit aggressive, especially to start. Perhaps we can extend the critical window to one week as a compromise for now, and then reserve the 48-hour window for truly severe zero-day vulnerabilities.
Nate (Server Team Manager): That sounds reasonable. We appreciate the flexibility. Can we have a bit of leeway in the beginning as we work through the remediation and patching process, just for the first few months or so?
Oliver (Security Analyst): Absolutely. After the policy is finalized, we'll officially start the program, but we're planning to give all departments about 6 months to adjust and get comfortable with the new process. Does that sound fair?
Nate (Server Team Manager): Thanks, Oliver. We'll do our best. I appreciate you including us in the decision-making process, it really helps us feel like we're part of the solution.
Oliver (Security Analyst): Of course, we're all in this together. Thanks for working with us.
Nate (Server Team Manager): No problem. Thanks for keeping it brief.
Oliver (Security Analyst): Those are my favorite kinds of meetings. Bye now!
Nate (Server Team Manager): See you later.
After gathering feedback from the server team, the policy is revised, addressing aggressive remediation timelines. With final approval from upper management, the policy now guides the program, ensuring compliance and reference for pushback resolution.
Finalized Policy
The team collaborates with the server team to initiate scheduled credential scans. A compromise is reached to scan a single server first, monitoring resource impact, and using just-in-time Active Directory credentials for secure, controlled access.
Oliver (Security Analyst): Morning, Nate.
Nate (Server Team Manager): Good morning! I heard you're ready to conduct some scans.
Oliver (Security Analyst): Yep. Now that our vulnerability management policy is in place, I wanted to get started on conducting some scheduled credentialed scans of your environment.
Nate (Server Team Manager): Sounds good to me. What's involved, how can we help?
Oliver (Security Analyst): We're planning to schedule weekly scans of the server infrastructure. We estimate it'll take about 4 to 6 hours to scan all 200 assets. We'll need you to provide us with some administrative credentials, which will allow the scan engine to remotely log into the targets to better assess them.
Nate (Server Team Manager): Whoa, hold on. What does scanning actually entail? I'm a bit worried about resource utilization. Also, you want admin credentials to all 200 machines, that doesn't sound safe.
Oliver (Security Analyst): Those are valid concerns. The scan engine basically sends traffic to the servers to check for the existence of certain vulnerabilities, things like looking into the registry, checking for out-of-date software, and identifying insecure protocols or cipher suites. That's why credentials are required.
Nate (Server Team Manager): I see. Well, as long as it doesn't bring the servers offline, I think we should be okay.
Oliver (Security Analyst): Absolutely. Let's start by scanning a single server and keep an eye on resource utilization.
Nate (Server Team Manager): Not a bad idea. Also, for the credentials, can you set up something in Active Directory? We can leave the account disabled until we're ready to scan, enable it during the scan, and then deprovision or disable it once it's finished. Kind of a just-in-time access situation.
Oliver (Security Analyst): That sounds great. I'll ask Susan to get started on the automation for the account provisioning.
Nate (Server Team Manager): Awesome. Talk soon.
Oliver (Security Analyst): Sounds good. I'll get back to you once the credentials are set up.
Nate (Server Team Manager): See you later.
Oliver (Security Analyst): See you later.
In this phase, an insecure Windows Server is provisioned to simulate the server team's environment. After creating vulnerabilities, an authenticated scan is performed, and the results are exported for future remediation steps.
We assessed vulnerabilities and established a remediation prioritization strategy based on ease of remediation and impact. The following priorities were set:
- Third Party Software Removal (Wireshark)
- Windows OS Secure Configuration (Protocols & Ciphers)
- Windows OS Secure Configuration (Guest Account Group Membership)
- Windows OS Updates
The server team received remediation scripts and scan reports to address key vulnerabilities. This streamlined their efforts and prepared them for a follow-up review.
The server team reviewed vulnerability scan results, identifying outdated software, insecure accounts, and deprecated protocols. The remediation packages were prepared for submission to the Change Control Board (CAB).
Oliver (Security Analyst): Morning, Nate. How are you doing?
Nate (Server Team Manager): Not bad for a Monday. Yourself?
Oliver (Security Analyst): Still alive, so I can't complain. Before we get into the vulnerabilities, how did the actual scan go on your end? Any outages or resource overutilization?
Nate (Server Team Manager): The scan went well. We were monitoring throughout, and aside from the open connections, we would have never known a scan was taking place.
Oliver (Security Analyst): That's good news. I kind of expected that. We can keep monitoring going forward, but I don't anticipate any resource utilization issues. Do you mind if I dive into the vulnerability findings?
Nate (Server Team Manager): Yeah, absolutely.
Oliver (Security Analyst): Cool. I'm going to share my screen. So basically, the majority of these vulnerabilities come from Wireshark being installed, you can see all the findings tied to it, it's just very out of date. One interesting thing I found is that the local guest account on the servers belongs to a group, and when I looked deeper, it belongs to the local administrators group. I'm not sure why that is. I also noticed that Windows is not fully updated. I don't think there are any vulnerabilities reflected due to the out of date version, but I think it would be a good idea to bring all our Windows OS to the latest version. The self-signed certificate finding isn't a concern since it's just the computer's own cert. However, the medium-strength cipher suites and TLS 1.0/1.1 findings are deprecated protocols and cipher suites that we should take time to remediate. So in summary, we're looking at: Wireshark, the deprecated protocols and cipher suites, removing the guest account from the local administrators group, and Windows OS update.
Nate (Server Team Manager): Very interesting. The good news is I suspect most of our servers are going to have the same vulnerabilities, which should hopefully make remediation easier.
Oliver (Security Analyst): Yeah, a uniform load out is actually good news. Do you foresee any issues remediating the cipher suites and insecure protocols specifically?
Nate (Server Team Manager): I highly doubt it. We'll run it through the next Change Control Board. Uninstalling Wireshark and fixing the guest account shouldn't be an issue, those aren't supposed to be on the servers anyway. I'll have to talk to our sysadmins about that.
Oliver (Security Analyst): Good to hear. I'll go ahead and start building out some remediation packages to make things easier when it comes time to fix them.
Nate (Server Team Manager): That sounds great. Oh, I wanted to ask, do you have anything in place to handle the Windows update-related vulnerabilities? Like patch management?
Oliver (Security Analyst): Yes, actually, Windows updates should be handled automatically by next week. We have patch management in place.
Nate (Server Team Manager): Excellent.
Oliver (Security Analyst): Alright, I'll get started on researching the best remediation approach for these findings and get back to you before the next Change Control Board.
Nate (Server Team Manager): Sounds good. Talk to you soon.
Oliver (Security Analyst): Cool, talk to you soon.
The Change Control Board (CAB) reviewed and approved the plan to remove insecure protocols and cipher suites. The plan included a rollback script and a tiered deployment approach.
Dennis (CAB Facilitator): Okay, next up on the list are a couple of vulnerability remediations for the server team. Number one: removal of insecure protocols. Number two: removal of insecure cipher suites. It looks like Oliver from the risk department is working in conjunction with Nate from infrastructure on this. Nate, do you want to walk us through the technical aspects of the change being implemented?
Nate (Server Team Manager): Normally I would, but do you mind giving this one to Oliver? He actually built the solution for us, we're still getting used to the process.
Oliver (Security Analyst): Yeah, I can explain. Insecure cipher suites and protocols, their existence on a system means the system is capable of negotiating and using algorithms or protocols that have been deprecated. If it connects to a server that only supports those protocols, it's possible the computer will use them. These are controlled by the Windows registry, and it's a straightforward fix. We wrote a PowerShell script that goes through and disables all the insecure protocols and cipher suites, then enables the ones that meet today's security standards.
Christian (Lead Systems Engineer): That sounds good, but what if something goes wrong? Do we have a rollback plan in place?
Oliver (Security Analyst): Yes, absolutely. First, we're doing a tiered deployment, starting with a small pilot group, then pre-production, and finally a full production rollout. On top of that, we have a fully automated rollback script built in for each remediation. The script will restore the original protocols and cipher suites should any unknown issues come up.
Christian (Lead Systems Engineer): That sounds good. I notice the fixes are simple registry updates, so I'm not too concerned.
Oliver (Security Analyst): Exactly.
Dennis (CAB Facilitator): Any more questions from anybody? Great, that wraps things up for this week's Change Control Board meeting. See you all next week.
Nate (Server Team Manager): See you later.
The server team used a PowerShell script to remove outdated Wireshark. A follow-up scan confirmed successful remediation.
Wireshark Removal Script
Scan 2 - Third Party Software Removal
The server team used PowerShell scripts to remediate insecure protocols and cipher suites. A follow-up scan verified successful remediation, and the results were saved for reference.
PowerShell: Insecure Protocols Remediation
PowerShell: Insecure Ciphers Remediation
Scan 3 - Ciphersuites and Protocols
The server team removed the guest account from the administrator group. A new scan confirmed remediation, and the results were exported for comparison.
PowerShell: Guest Account Group Membership Remediation
Scan 4 - Guest Account Group Removal
Windows updates were re-enabled and applied until the system was fully up to date. This seems to have introduced a new vulnerability.
The windows update from round 4 introduced an SQLite vulnerability. This vulnerability is due to the windows update using winsqlite3.dll version 3.51.1. We have decided to log a risk exception in the scanner and regularly checkback to see if the windows update is patched. Otherwise the CVE-2013-3900 was resolved by adding some registry key values and a final scan was performed to confirm remediation. Keys below for reference.
CVE-2013-3900: Registry Key Remediation
The remediation process reduced total vulnerabilities by 80%, from 30 to 6. Critical vulnerabilities were resolved by the second scan (100%), and high vulnerabilities dropped by 90%. Mediums were reduced by 76%. In an actual production environment, asset criticality would further guide future remediation efforts.
After completing the initial remediation cycle, the vulnerability management program transitions into Maintenance Mode. This phase ensures that vulnerabilities continue to be managed proactively, keeping systems secure over time. Regular scans, continuous monitoring, and timely remediation are crucial components of this phase. (See Finalized Policy for scanning and remediation cadence requirements.)
Key activities in Maintenance Mode include:
- Scheduled Vulnerability Scans: Perform regular scans (e.g., weekly or monthly) to detect new vulnerabilities as systems evolve.
- Patch Management: Continuously apply security patches and updates, ensuring no critical vulnerabilities remain unpatched.
- Remediation Follow-ups: Address newly identified vulnerabilities promptly, prioritizing based on risk and impact.
- Policy Review and Updates: Periodically review the Vulnerability Management Policy to ensure it aligns with the latest security best practices and organizational needs.
- Audit and Compliance: Conduct internal audits to ensure compliance with the vulnerability management policy and external regulations.
- Ongoing Communication with Stakeholders: Maintain open communication with teams responsible for remediation, ensuring efficient coordination.
By maintaining an active vulnerability management process, organizations can stay ahead of emerging threats and ensure long-term security resilience.