ISO Technical Vulnerability Management Verification
An ISO 27001 Technical Vulnerability Management (A.8.2) Verification refers to the process of obtaining objective evidence that the organization's vulnerability management program is operating effectively and achieving its goal of protecting information and information processing facilities from known technical weaknesses.
In the context of cybersecurity, this verification moves beyond simply identifying vulnerabilities and focuses on validating the entire lifecycle of vulnerability management, which includes:
Discovery and Identification Verification: Checking that the processes and tools used (like vulnerability scanners or external attack surface monitors) are comprehensive and successfully identify all relevant technical vulnerabilities within the defined scope, including assets that are internet-facing or newly deployed.
Assessment and Prioritization Verification: Confirming that the vulnerabilities discovered are accurately assessed in terms of risk, usually by considering their severity, exploitability, and the business impact to the organization. This ensures that remediation resources are focused on the highest-risk threats.
Remediation and Mitigation Verification (The "Fix"): Validating that the organization has processes to implement patches, apply secure configurations, or deploy compensating controls promptly. This includes confirming that mitigation measures, like a web application firewall (WAF), are correctly deployed to protect vulnerable applications.
Effectiveness Testing (The "Check"): Crucially, this involves performing re-testing (such as a re-scan or a penetration test) after remediation to confirm that the vulnerability has been eliminated or that the applied control is actually blocking exploitation. This objective proof is essential to demonstrating that the power is both implemented and effective.
Continuous Improvement Verification: Ensuring that lessons learned from each vulnerability cycle are used to refine the process, leading to better asset management, patch deployment strategies, and secure development practices, thus demonstrating continual risk reduction.
In short, A.8.2 Verification demands proof that the vulnerability management system is a mature, cyclical, and effective process, not just a reactive list of flaws.
ThreatNG is an excellent solution for performing Technical Vulnerability Management (A.8.2) Verification because it continuously tests the external attack surface from an attacker's perspective, providing objective evidence of where an organization’s identification, assessment, and remediation controls are succeeding or failing.
External Discovery and Continuous Monitoring
ThreatNG performs purely External Discovery using unauthenticated methods to build a complete inventory of exposed assets. This initial step validates that the organization's vulnerability-scanning scope is complete, confirming that the A.8.2 process identifies all relevant internet-facing assets. The subsequent Continuous Monitoring capability ensures that this verification is ongoing, immediately flagging when a new or forgotten asset, potentially running vulnerable software, appears on the external attack surface.
External Assessment and Security Ratings
ThreatNG's External Assessment capabilities directly support the verification of the assessment and prioritization steps of the A.8.2 process by rating risks based on their external exploitability and providing verifiable proof of exposure.
Examples of ThreatNG helping with A.8.2 Verification through assessments include:
Cyber Risk Exposure (A–F): This rating verifies the effectiveness of multiple technical controls. It checks for exposed Ports and the use of deprecated or missing security headers (Content-Security-Policy, HSTS, X-Content-Type, X-Frame-Options). Finding an exposed, high-risk port validates a failure in the organization's network security and patching controls.
Breach & Ransomware Susceptibility (A–F): This assessment includes explicitly checking for Vulnerabilities on Subdomains, Exposed Ports, and Private IPs. This provides direct verification that the internal vulnerability management system is successfully mitigating these high-impact external exposure vectors. A poor score validates a failure to remediate these critical risks.
Data Leak Susceptibility (A–F): This rating verifies that controls against data exposure are adequate. It includes discovering Known Vulnerabilities down to the subdomain level.
Investigation Modules
ThreatNG's investigation modules provide the forensic-level detail needed to verify whether a vulnerability is present, exploitable, and whether the organization's remediation controls are working.
Examples of ThreatNG helping with A.8.2 Verification using these modules include:
Known Vulnerabilities: This module is the centerpiece for A.8.2 verification. It checks discovered assets and technologies against a massive intelligence repository that integrates four key verification points:
NVD (DarCache NVD): Confirms the technical severity and characteristics of the flaw.
KEV (DarCache KEV): Verifies that the vulnerability is actively exploited in the wild, which is the highest-priority signal.
EPSS (DarCache EPSS): Gives a probabilistic estimate of the likelihood of exploitation, verifying the risk model used for prioritization.
Verified Proof-of-Concept (PoC) Exploits (DarCache eXploit): Provides direct evidence of how the vulnerability can be exploited, which is a key verification step for penetration testers and remediation teams.
Subdomain Intelligence (Ports): It verifies that the organization's secure configuration controls are minimizing the attack surface by scanning for exposed non-standard ports, including those for Databases (e.g., SQL Server, MongoDB) and Remote Access Services (e.g., SSH, RDP). The discovery of an exposed database port confirms a failure in technical vulnerability management.
Sensitive Code Exposure: This module verifies the Secure Development Lifecycle (A.14.2) control, which is intrinsically linked to A.8.2. If it finds Access Credentials or Security Credentials accidentally exposed in public code, it identifies a technical weakness requiring remediation.
Intelligence Repositories
The DarCache Intelligence Repositories ensure that the organization’s vulnerability process is informed by timely, relevant threat intelligence, thereby satisfying a key verification point.
Vulnerabilities (DarCache Vulnerability): This repository is fundamental for the prioritization verification step. By cross-referencing discovered technical vulnerabilities with KEV and EPSS data, ThreatNG provides objective evidence that the organization is addressing vulnerabilities that pose an immediate and proven threat, not just those with high CVSS scores.
Ransomware Groups and Activities (DarCache Ransomware): Tracking active ransomware groups ensures the vulnerability management program considers one of the most significant external threats when prioritizing remediation efforts.
Reporting
ThreatNG’s Reporting capabilities provide executive and technical summaries of the vulnerability posture. The External GRC Assessment Mappings directly correlate findings, such as Critical and High Severity Vulnerabilities Found, to Technical Vulnerability Management (A.8.2). The Context Engine™ provides Legal-Grade Attribution for these findings, giving security leaders the certainty required to justify and accelerate the remediation of externally verified risks.
ThreatNG and Complementary Solutions
ThreatNG's external verification capabilities cooperate with internal security tools to automate the prioritization and remediation phases of A.8.2.
Vulnerability Management (VM) Scanners: When ThreatNG identifies an actively exploited (KEV) vulnerability on an exposed subdomain, this verification data is shared with the internal VM scanner. This cooperation dictates to the VM scanner to prioritize a deep internal scan of that specific asset and skip less critical assets, thereby validating that the organization is focusing its resources on the highest-risk, externally verified threats.
Patch Management Solutions: If ThreatNG, via its Known Vulnerabilities assessment, re-verifies that a previously reported critical vulnerability is still present after the internal system reports a successful patch, the new finding is fed to the patch management solution. This cooperation automatically flags a patch failure and triggers a mandatory re-deployment or a rollback, validating the effectiveness of the remediation control.
SOAR Platforms: The discovery of a Private IP exposed in public DNS records (a misconfiguration that facilitates reconnaissance for vulnerability exploitation) can trigger a SOAR playbook. This cooperation allows the SOAR platform to automatically execute steps such as querying the DNS server to remove the private record and creating a firewall rule to block traffic to that internal IP, thereby validating the immediate mitigation of an external technical weakness.
