Vulnerability in Cyber Security

What is a Vulnerability in Cyber Security?

Before understanding what a cybersecurity vulnerability is, let us see what a vulnerability is. In simple terms, vulnerability means the state of being open or susceptible to getting attacked and hurt. So how does this relate to cybersecurity? In cybersecurity, a vulnerability is defined as a flaw or weakness in the hardware, software, internal controls, technical controls, physical controls, or any other safeguards that could allow the system's security policy to be violated through either inadvertent activation or deliberate exploitation.

Hackers and attackers exploit these vulnerabilities to cause damage to the systems and data. Various types of vulnerabilities can be classified into six broad categories.

Six Types of Cyber Vulnerabilities

Cyber vulnerabilities can be further classified into six types :

1. Hardware: In this type of vulnerability, the hardware of the product is susceptible to attacks from natural factors such as humidity, accumulation of dust, any natural disaster, etc., from which the hardware is destroyed or impaired and causes an issue in everyday functioning. Furthermore, hardware is also susceptible when an attacker can access the hardware due to either poor security or firmware vulnerability or the hardware is faulty.

2. Software: In this type of vulnerability, the software is susceptible to injection attacks such as SQL injections and XSS or cross-site scripting attacks, cross-site request forgery, buffer overflow, and any other vulnerability arising from design flaws and insufficient testing before release.

3. Network: In this vulnerability, exploitation is performed while data communication is performed. Attacks such as man in the middle, broken authentication, broken authorization, poor data encryption while transferring, etc., result in this type of vulnerability.

4. Personnel: This is a classification that involves personnel that will be using the product. Non-adherence to policies such as changing passwords regularly, scanning emails, and use of unauthorized devices results in causing vulnerability in the system. Personals getting trapped from social engineering attacks.

5. Physical site: This vulnerability is because of physical office space, which can be affected in any natural disaster. Unauthorized access of personnel into office space and access to systems. Theft of physical documents from the office.

6. Organizational: This includes a lack of audits in cybersecurity and plans for cybersecurity and attacks and a lack of training for employees in this regard, Nonpresence of an incident response team or project. Little to no concern for the cybersecurity of the company.

How Is Cybersecurity Vulnerability Different from a Cybersecurity Threat?

A flaw or weakness in the hardware, software, internal controls, technological controls, physical controls, or any other safety measure that could allow the system's security policy to be broken by accidental activation or intentional exploitation is referred to as a vulnerability.

A threat can be described as an act or intention to cause damage. A cybersecurity threat can range from malware to targeted denial-of-service attacks. These threats use vulnerabilities and exploit them. The potential of a successful cyberattack is another way to characterize threats.

What is the Difference between Vulnerability and Risk?

A risk implies uncertainty or the possibility of something terrible happening. Risk is the likelihood or potential for harm, injury, loss, or any other undesirable event brought on by vulnerabilities either within or out and preventive measures can prevent that. It is impossible to eliminate risk, Risk management can be done to prepare and deal with threats. Not fixing vulnerabilities results in increased risk.

Risk is directly proportional to the number of threats on the system, which is dependent on the number of vulnerabilities. Risk can be of two types that are external and internal. When the risk is caused by external factors such as attackers. When the risk is caused by internal factors such as mal intent of an employee, etc.

What Causes Vulnerabilities?

There are numerous causes for vulnerabilities in cybersecurity which include outdated software, design flaws, security misconfiguration, personnel involved in the design, testing, and usage process, bugs in the software, and unexpected errors such as buffer overflows.

• The software systems can be complex, thus resulting in vulnerabilities due to misconfigurations.
• Sometimes, the end user falls into the trap of social engineering attacks, causing much more damage.
• The end-user not updating the software can also result in causing vulnerability for the system.
• Sometimes unintentional bugs and flaws remain in the product when there are design issues and the product is not adequately tested, causing a vulnerability.
• Not taking into account errors such as memory errors, including buffer overflow, causes the vulnerability.

Common Types of Cyber Security Vulnerabilities

There can be various types of cybersecurity vulnerabilities which include misconfigurations of the system settings, outdated or unpatched software, authentication, and authorization failure due to various factors such as missing or weak authorization credentials or some employee providing login details to an attacker because of malicious intent or by falling into social engineering attacks.

1. System misconfigurations: These occur when someone unknowingly enables or disables some setting, leading to a window of opportunity for the attacker to exploit the system. Proper care should be taken to ensure critical settings are configured properly.

2. Software vulnerabilities: These vulnerabilities occur when the software contains bugs left by the programmers accidentally which can be exploited.

3. Out-of-date or unpatched software: When software updates are released and not updated on the client side might lead an attacker to exploit some known vulnerability that was patched in the update. But as the client-side software is not updated, which makes the software vulnerable.

4. Missing or weak authorization credentials: A lot of times no authorization is used, or a weak login system is used. Using weak authorization methods makes the system vulnerable to a variety of attacks, including brute force attacks, etc.

5. Malicious insider threats: If an employee with malicious intent tries to cause damage of any form is included in malicious insider threats. For example, leaking sensitive information and providing his login id and password to a malicious attacker.

6. Missing or poor data encryption: While data transmission, missing or poor data encryption leads to leaking of sensitive information. If that data falls into the wrong hands can cause severe damage.

7. Zero-day vulnerabilities: These vulnerabilities include all the vulnerabilities that have not yet been discovered by the organization but are known to attackers. This is a severe attack as there is no way to protect against them until the attack occurs. To reduce the possibility of a zero-day assault, it is crucial to maintain continuous vigilance and regularly check the systems for vulnerabilities.

What are Vulnerability Databases?

A vulnerability database is generally a platform or place where computer security vulnerabilities are collected, maintained, and disseminated. The database stores information regarding identified vulnerabilities, the potential impact on affected systems, steps to remove that vulnerability if any exist, or any updates on how to mitigate the risk.

A vulnerability database can be free or paid based on the company's maintenance. Some examples of vulnerability databases are National Vulnerability Database (NVD), Open-Sourced Vulnerability Database (OSVDB). A vulnerability database was initially made to list all known vulnerabilities using which the company's services can be stopped. Moreover, using that list ensures that these are patched and not repeated in future developments.

Databases of vulnerabilities based on software version numbers are kept up to date by several organizations and are available to the public. Each flaw carries the risk of compromising the network or system if it is used.

Why Do We Need a Vulnerability Database?

Suppose all it does is maintain a list of vulnerabilities and details about the vulnerabilities. In that case, attackers could misuse it to attack an organization and bring down the service. However, the use of exposure is not just limited to storing vulnerabilities. This serves as a teaching point for developers not to repeat the same mistakes some previous developers made.

Also, the exposures and their reports are kept private until they are resolved, mitigated, or are no longer harmful to the organization. Common security vulnerabilities include initial deployment failure, injections, system misconfigurations, poor or inadequate encryption, and auditing of the systems and information.