1 1 00:00:00,510 --> 00:00:02,030 Scan Reports. 2 2 00:00:02,030 --> 00:00:04,110 In this lesson, we're going to start looking 3 3 00:00:04,110 --> 00:00:05,580 at some scan reports 4 4 00:00:05,580 --> 00:00:08,250 from our different vulnerability assessment tools. 5 5 00:00:08,250 --> 00:00:10,200 Now, these scan reports are going to contain 6 6 00:00:10,200 --> 00:00:13,680 color-coded vulnerabilities in terms of their criticality. 7 7 00:00:13,680 --> 00:00:15,720 This allows you to very quickly identify 8 8 00:00:15,720 --> 00:00:17,700 what is the most important things 9 9 00:00:17,700 --> 00:00:19,560 that need to draw your attention. 10 10 00:00:19,560 --> 00:00:22,590 For example, here on the screen, you can see a list 11 11 00:00:22,590 --> 00:00:24,390 of several different vulnerabilities 12 12 00:00:24,390 --> 00:00:25,890 that are being displayed. 13 13 00:00:25,890 --> 00:00:27,990 Here are just the first six vulnerabilities 14 14 00:00:27,990 --> 00:00:30,750 we're going to look at, and you can see the severity of them. 15 15 00:00:30,750 --> 00:00:32,730 These are all classified as high 16 16 00:00:32,730 --> 00:00:36,030 because they have a 10.0 or 9.3 rating 17 17 00:00:36,030 --> 00:00:38,070 as far as criticality is concerned. 18 18 00:00:38,070 --> 00:00:40,680 Now, if I clicked on that specific vulnerability, 19 19 00:00:40,680 --> 00:00:42,450 it will actually give me additional details 20 20 00:00:42,450 --> 00:00:45,420 about that vulnerability, such as how it's detected, 21 21 00:00:45,420 --> 00:00:46,620 what can be done to fix it, 22 22 00:00:46,620 --> 00:00:48,750 and what could be used to exploit it. 23 23 00:00:48,750 --> 00:00:50,430 All of this is valid information 24 24 00:00:50,430 --> 00:00:51,780 that you should be reviewing, 25 25 00:00:51,780 --> 00:00:53,070 so you can make a determination 26 26 00:00:53,070 --> 00:00:56,040 of what you're going to do to mitigate this risk. 27 27 00:00:56,040 --> 00:00:57,450 Now, at any time if you want to look 28 28 00:00:57,450 --> 00:00:58,830 at your previous scan reports, 29 29 00:00:58,830 --> 00:01:01,260 you can do that by going back through your dashboard 30 30 00:01:01,260 --> 00:01:03,450 of your vulnerability assessment tool. 31 31 00:01:03,450 --> 00:01:05,790 Now again, these reports should be treated 32 32 00:01:05,790 --> 00:01:07,350 as highly confidential, 33 33 00:01:07,350 --> 00:01:09,060 and you should limit the access to them 34 34 00:01:09,060 --> 00:01:10,950 to a specific group of administrators 35 35 00:01:10,950 --> 00:01:12,480 that have the rights to look at them 36 36 00:01:12,480 --> 00:01:14,940 because these are the keys to the kingdom. 37 37 00:01:14,940 --> 00:01:17,460 These scans have now already told the attacker 38 38 00:01:17,460 --> 00:01:19,800 what is on your network that is vulnerable. 39 39 00:01:19,800 --> 00:01:22,680 So if an attacker got their hands on this scan report, 40 40 00:01:22,680 --> 00:01:24,360 they would know exactly what to attack 41 41 00:01:24,360 --> 00:01:26,970 and how easily to get into your network. 42 42 00:01:26,970 --> 00:01:28,980 Now, one of the things I see a lot of people do 43 43 00:01:28,980 --> 00:01:32,280 is they try to use automation for everything in the network. 44 44 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:34,230 Now, automation is a great thing to use 45 45 00:01:34,230 --> 00:01:36,750 and it can really free up a lot of your analyst time, 46 46 00:01:36,750 --> 00:01:40,530 but automation by itself cannot do everything for you. 47 47 00:01:40,530 --> 00:01:43,260 For example, one of the things I see commonly done 48 48 00:01:43,260 --> 00:01:44,610 is that people will set up these tools 49 49 00:01:44,610 --> 00:01:47,190 to automatically scan the network, which is a good thing, 50 50 00:01:47,190 --> 00:01:49,290 and then automatically send out those reports 51 51 00:01:49,290 --> 00:01:52,920 via email or send an alert via email or text message 52 52 00:01:52,920 --> 00:01:55,650 if the scan finds some non-compliant item. 53 53 00:01:55,650 --> 00:01:58,140 Now, this is a good thing to do in theory, 54 54 00:01:58,140 --> 00:01:59,940 but you have to be careful here 55 55 00:01:59,940 --> 00:02:02,610 because this automatic distribution of these scan results 56 56 00:02:02,610 --> 00:02:05,490 does make it harder for you to preserve confidentiality. 57 57 00:02:05,490 --> 00:02:07,170 It's harder to maintain control 58 58 00:02:07,170 --> 00:02:08,490 over all of those scan reports 59 59 00:02:08,490 --> 00:02:10,530 when you start sending them out to everyone, 60 60 00:02:10,530 --> 00:02:11,460 and so you want to make sure 61 61 00:02:11,460 --> 00:02:13,140 that if you're using automation, 62 62 00:02:13,140 --> 00:02:15,240 you really think through who's getting that, 63 63 00:02:15,240 --> 00:02:16,230 how you're protecting it, 64 64 00:02:16,230 --> 00:02:17,790 and are you encrypting that data 65 65 00:02:17,790 --> 00:02:19,500 as you start sending it out. 66 66 00:02:19,500 --> 00:02:21,720 For this reason, a lot of organizations 67 67 00:02:21,720 --> 00:02:23,640 will do automated scans, 68 68 00:02:23,640 --> 00:02:26,700 but those reports will stay in a centralized location 69 69 00:02:26,700 --> 00:02:28,440 and then will have to be looked at manually 70 70 00:02:28,440 --> 00:02:31,200 and those will be sent out additionally to the right people 71 71 00:02:31,200 --> 00:02:33,900 in a secure method so they can look at them. 72 72 00:02:33,900 --> 00:02:36,450 Now, this brings us to the idea of manual distribution. 73 73 00:02:36,450 --> 00:02:38,430 When you're dealing with manual distribution reports, 74 74 00:02:38,430 --> 00:02:40,080 this can allow you to have better control 75 75 00:02:40,080 --> 00:02:42,000 over the contents of those reports 76 76 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:43,860 because you're making sure only what you want 77 77 00:02:43,860 --> 00:02:46,500 is being seen by others, and in addition to that, 78 78 00:02:46,500 --> 00:02:49,560 it gives your analysts a chance to explain the results. 79 79 00:02:49,560 --> 00:02:51,780 Now, what I mean by this is you can take that report 80 80 00:02:51,780 --> 00:02:54,270 and you can go brief it up to the senior leadership. 81 81 00:02:54,270 --> 00:02:56,640 This might be your executives or your managers 82 82 00:02:56,640 --> 00:02:58,440 or whoever it is that you need to brief. 83 83 00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:00,030 Now, instead of just giving them a report 84 84 00:03:00,030 --> 00:03:02,257 with facts and figures, you can explain to them, 85 85 00:03:02,257 --> 00:03:04,260 "Yes, there is this vulnerability. 86 86 00:03:04,260 --> 00:03:06,660 It affects 50% of our systems 87 87 00:03:06,660 --> 00:03:09,240 and it's really critical because of this reason 88 88 00:03:09,240 --> 00:03:11,520 and here's what I recommend we do to fix it." 89 89 00:03:11,520 --> 00:03:13,950 This gives you a chance to start getting that narrative 90 90 00:03:13,950 --> 00:03:16,260 and be able to control exactly what's going to be done 91 91 00:03:16,260 --> 00:03:18,060 as you move forward into the future.