There is no security without accuracy. Vulnerability and configuration scanning helps you discover hidden systems and identify vulnerabilities before attackers. The accuracy of these scans determines how well your IT teams can use the results to find and fix your highest-priority security and compliance issues.
| Accurate Results | Inaccurate Results |
|---|---|
| Enhance productivity of IT teams | Cause IT teams to waste time and resources acting on incorrect reports |
| Protect organisations by closing the window of opportunity for attackers | Leave organisations exposed to missed vulnerabilities |
| Validate that IT teams have successfully found and eliminated the highest-risk vulnerabilities | Misrepresent the true security posture of the organisation |
| Provides assurance by giving you base security metrics you can trust | Can give you a false sense of security preventing the organisation from taking appropriate action |
Here’s how the Cloud21 Qualys VMDR solution achieves high levels of accuracy:
It is agent and scanner based and has a passive sensor providing an extra layer of security for rogue devices
On demand scans are reliant on manual scheduling. Since devices are not always switched on, nor connected to the network, there’s an increased risk these devices will miss a scheduled scan.
Reassurance increases with an agent-based solution because it is much more efficient at polling assets. The Qualys cloud agent captures data every four hours including mobile devices, and it works as soon as a device is switched on. If 10% of your estate is offline, the agent will scan as soon as the machine comes online, and data will be available in your dashboard within four hours. The Qualys solution is flexible and can be configured to track and view a segment of your estate, for example offline devices.
The passive sensor provides additional assurance, as it can pick up unmanaged devices that don’t have an agent installed – even those that communicate across the network outside of scheduled scan windows.
The scope of what is checked
As a rule, if the database the scanner is checking against doesn’t contain the latest vulnerabilities then it can’t highlight a device at risk. If the database the scanner checks against isn’t kept current, then known vulnerabilities will be undetected on your network until that database is updated. So you see, the validity of the database plays a major part in how accurate your scan results are.
Qualys runs over 64,000 vulnerability checks including more than 50,000 that are linked to one or more of the 165,000 Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs). Cultivated over 20 years, Qualys’ knowledgebase of vulnerabilities is the largest and most up-to-date in the security industry and is updated daily by Qualys’ team of vulnerability signature engineers.
Newly issued critical and high severity NHS Cyber Alerts are added to the knowledge base by Cloud21 within 4 hours. The remaining levels of severity Cyber Alerts are added within 48 hours of the relevant notification issued by NHS Digital.
Qualys consistently exceeds six sigma accuracy (For over 10 years straight)
The Six Sigma technique is well-suited to improving the quality of vulnerability and configuration scanning necessary for giving organisations continuous, real-time visibility of their IT assets. Comparing quality levels over time against the volume of scans conducted shows whether a security and compliance solution can be relied upon, especially as the number of IT assets multiply – whether on premises, at endpoints or in clouds.
In the twelve months ending in December 2020, the Qualys Cloud Platform performed over 6 billion security and compliance scans, while keeping defect levels low.