Category Archives: Topics

VM Remediation using external task tracking systems

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VM Remediation using external task tracking systems. In previous post I have briefly reviewed built-in remediation capabilities of vulnerability management systems. Continuing the theme, today I want to share some basic concepts how vulnerability remediation can be managed using external task tracking systems (Jira, TFS, Testrack, etc).

Jira Vulnerability Management ticket

Pros: it makes possible to implement any logic of remediation/patch management process.
Cons: you should make it by yourself; scripting skills and API knowledge required.

Tickets in buit-in remediation systems are usually assigned per host or per vulnerability. However, for large size networks making “one vulnerability on one host – one ticket” quickly become impractical. With universal task trackers we can do it in a different ways. I find it most convenient to make tickets on principle “one category of vulnerabilities, one ip range, one scanning iteration – one ticket”.
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Qualys SSL Labs console client

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Qualys SSL Labs console client. Qualys SSL Labs is a free online service, which performs a deep analysis of web server SSL configuration and detects some common OpenSSL vulnerabilities either (e.g. Heartbleed).

Qualys SSL Lab Report

This service has an API and official console client, that could be used to automate security assessment.

Qualys SSL Labs official console client ssllabs-scan

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Remediation capabilities of Vulnerability Management products

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Remediation capabilities of Vulnerability Management products. Vulnerability scanning and vulnerability management. This terms are often used synonymously. However, most top security vendors and institutions, express an opinion, that vulnerability management is a more complex process that includes vulnerability scanning (vulnerability assessment in general), remediation and some other stages, like asset management and risk assessment.

Vulnerability Management Lifecycle

Remediation in most cases, does not mean that the vulnerability management product automatically tries to patch vulnerable system, but rather provide functionality to control remediation process. In other words, it contains a built-in task tracker, where security administrators could assign tickets (manually or automatically) on system administrators to patch or reconfigure vulnerable systems. For example, such functionality is implemented in Tenable Security Center and Qualys Cloud Suite.

NB: In most cases, but there are exceptions, as ERPScan, Secpod Saner or ConfigOS. This solutions can actually update vulnerable systems automatically.

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Federated-Style CVE

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Federated-Style CVE. It seems like MITRE Corporation wants to cut the costs of security projects. Once again. They transfered OVAL Project to the Center for Internet Security. Now MITRE announced the launch of a “Federated-Style CVE ID”. The idea is to give oportunity for other authorities to issue CVE IDs in special format.

cve

The federated ID syntax will be CVE-CCCIII-YYYY-NNNN…N, where “CCC” encodes the issuing authority’s country and “III” encodes the issuing authority. At its launch, MITRE will be the only issuing authority, but we expect to quickly add others to address the needs of the research and discloser communities, as well as the cybersecurity community as a whole. This new federated ID system will significantly enhance the early stage vulnerability mitigation coordination, and reduce the time lapse between request and issuance

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An introduction to Rapid7 Nexpose API

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An introduction to Rapid7 Nexpose API. Another nice thing about Nexpose is that this vulnerability scanner has an open API. And even free Nexpose Community Edition supports it.

Rapid7 Nexpose API

It’s a really generous gift from Rapid7. That means that you can use Nexpose to scan your environment, easily manage it from your scripts and make any vulnerability assessment and remediation logic you need.

I haven’t found manuals about using Nexpose API to automate basic vulnerability management tasks and decided to write my own. Hope somebody will find it useful. All examples will be in form of curl requests.

Working with Nexpose API is nothing more than sending xml Post-requests to the https://[Nexpose Host]:3780/api/[API Version]/xml and receiving xml responses.
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