2024-08-07 –, Florentine F
In the current cybersecurity landscape, organizations are engaged in a never-ending game of whack-a-mole, struggling to keep pace with the rapid increase in vulnerabilities stemming from unprecedented volumes of code combined with an increased reliance on third-party software. Such a reactive approach to vulnerability management is inefficient and unsustainable as the gap between the discovery and remediation of vulnerabilities continues to widen, while the time it takes for attackers to exploit known vulnerabilities decreases.
This talk proposes a proactive pivotal shift towards a scalable, automated, and risk-oriented vulnerability management strategy. We'll explore the transformative potential of standards and frameworks like SBOM (Software Bill of Materials), CSAF (Common Security Advisory Framework), and VEX (Vulnerability Exploitability Exchange), to automate, streamline, and enhance the vulnerability management process while aligning remediation efforts with genuine risk impacts..
Attendees will gain insights into how automation can adapt to the evolving threat landscape, ensuring that vulnerability management is both effective and sustainable in an increasingly complex cybersecurity environment.
In the fast-evolving cybersecurity landscape, traditional approaches to vulnerability management are increasingly proving inadequate. Organizations find themselves playing a continuous game of whack-a-mole, reacting to vulnerabilities as they appear without a scalable strategy. This talk advocates for a paradigm shift to a proactive, automated vulnerability management strategy. We will discuss how leveraging frameworks like SBOM, CSAF, and VEX can allow transforming the vulnerability triage process in many cases from labor-intensive to a more intelligent, risk-oriented, and most importantly automatic process.
Attendees will learn how to integrate contextual elements that enhance decision-making and prioritize threats based on real-world impacts and exploitability. The discussion aims to equip participants with the knowledge to implement an automated, scalable vulnerability management system that not only keeps pace with rapid technological advancements but also aligns with their organization's specific risk landscape.
Outline:
Introduction (5 minutes)
- Overview of the current state of vulnerability management.
- Challenges with the traditional, manual approach in the context of vulnerability triage.
The Escalating Challenge (5 minutes)
- Discuss how these challenges only intensify over time due to: increased volumes of code, reliance on third-party software, increase in AI-generated code, time intervals from vulnerability discovery to exploitation getting shorter, and more…
- Statistics and trends highlighting the widening gap between vulnerability discovery and remediation.
The promise and peril of SBOM (5 minutes)
- The events that led to the increased adoption of SBOM.
- Current state of the SBOM ecosystem.
- Why SBOM alone isn’t a silver bullet (double-edged sword, with increased visibility comes increased noise).
- BOM as a machine-readable base layer for automation.
A way forward (15 minutes)
- How do we answer ““Am I affected?” at scale? - The importance of automation.
- Introduction to, CSAF, and VEX
- How these tools can streamline the vulnerability management process
Vision for the Future and Implementation Strategies (10 minutes)
- I will offer an outlook into a future in which these standards gain wide adoption, and how that can lead to more effective and scalable vulnerability management.
- An example of such an ideal flow in a visual manner.
- Discussion of scalability and customization according to organizational needs.
Q&A and Conclusion (5 minutes)
- Open the floor to questions from the audience.
- Summarize key takeaways.
- Encourage attendees to consider how they can apply these concepts in their own environments.
Yotam leads the vulnerability research team at Rezilion, focusing on research around vulnerability validation, mitigation, and remediation.
Prior to Rezilion, Yotam filled several roles at PayPal Security organization, dealing with vulnerability management, threat intelligence, and Insider threat. Additionally, Yotam is also a member of the PyCon Israel organization committee, a member of the EPSS SIG, takes part in several OpenSSF working groups around open-source security as well as several CISA work streams around SBOM and VEX.
He is passionate about Cyber Security and Machine Learning and is especially intrigued by the intersection between the domains, whether it be using ML in order to help solve Cyber Security challenges or exploring the challenges in securing ML applications.