ISO 27001 requires 'vulnerability management' — what is the exact process and which tools should we use?

On the open-source side, community-edition network scanners deployed as container images will get the job done. You can scan your servers' OS packages and open ports to generate CVE-based reports. That said, the biggest hassle is sifting through false positives. If you can hook the scan into a weekly cron job and export the results as JSON, the whole workflow can be completely automated.

We went through a similar process for our 20-server infrastructure in Madrid. The big enterprise tools quoted us 6,500 EUR annually. Instead, we installed a cloud security add-on that costs us 8 EUR per server monthly. We spend around 1,900 EUR a year, and the auditor signed off on the process during the first audit without raising any non-conformities.

Consultants usually try to overcomplicate things and push expensive software they get a commission on. What the auditor actually looks at isn't the tool's dashboard, but who resolved the findings in the Excel sheet and on what date. Before sinking a fortune into tools, get your process documentation sorted out.

The cycle you need to implement is as follows: 1) Run an automated scan at the beginning of the month. 2) Filter out critical and high-severity issues from the resulting CVE list. 3) Assign them as tasks to the dev team. 4) Run a verification scan once the patch is applied. 5) Archive the report and the remediation date as a PDF in your audit folder.

Which cloud provider are you hosting your servers with? Major providers have built-in security services that scan virtual machines and containers right out of the box. Most of the time, enabling these native services turns out to be way cheaper than renting an external tool.

Don't overlook library vulnerabilities on the code side. Scanning servers alone isn't enough; add free tools to your CI/CD pipeline that scan dependencies in your code repository as well. Auditors absolutely love seeing open-source vulnerability scans, and they cost next to nothing to set up.

the biggest trap is trying to scan everything at once. developers panic when a thousand findings pop up in the first month. start by scanning only external-facing ports and gradually move inward otherwise actual work will grind to a halt.

In the ISO 27001:2022 standard, Clause 8.8 directly addresses the management of technical vulnerabilities. It is essential for the organization to demonstrate its capability to evaluate vulnerabilities and initiate corrective actions. Accordingly, drafting an approved Vulnerability Management Procedure is mandatory for the audit.

I'm curious too.

Here's how it went for us. Any unwritten clause becomes a point of disagreement later, as both sides remember it differently.

That's all sorry if I went on too long.

I didn't know that.

I went through the same thing two years ago. Mistakes made on the vulnerability management tools side are usually reversible but expensive.

Just leaving this note, it might be useful.

How did you solve this? The answer varies greatly by industry; there is no one-size-fits-all rule.

If you have questions, write them; I'll answer as best I can.

Exactly like that. If 2FA is on, a stolen password alone is useless.

When making decisions, write down the worst-case scenario too, not just the best. This is my opinion, I'm not claiming it's absolute truth.

To get into the details: Your time to detect an issue directly determines its cost.

Mistakes made on the vulnerability management tools side are usually reversible but expensive.

Here's how it went for us. Taking notes for two weeks yields better results than a six-month estimate.

Everything goes well for the first three months; problems arise in the fourth.

Let me write how it's done in practice. If you get three different answers on a topic, the question was asked wrong.

When you try to change everything at once, nothing settles. If I were you, I'd go this route.

The most overlooked point about vulnerability management tools is this: The harder it is to reverse a decision, the slower you should make it.

Good luck with that.