Technical Vulnerability Assessment

Understand your organisation's technical vulnerabilities.

Technical Vulnerability assessment covers a broad range of activities which are intended to determine the degree to which an organisation, system, or information asset is exposed to potential compromise, the impact of such a compromise, and the likelihood of it occurring, through primarily technical means.

Technical vulnerability assessment feeds into risk management by providing objective information that can be used to determine organisational impact, and absolute risk level.

Similarly, it is not a replacement for penetration testing, but could be considered as more of a supportive or adjunctive service; providing additional information to better scope or interpret the results from penetration testing activities. There are different types of technical vulnerability assessment activity, and a wide range of approaches that can be taken. These should be driven primarily by internal risk management and security strategy.

Build Review

This service makes use of automated tools and manual inspection, and requires a high level of understanding of the client’s intended use of the system.

The exact process depends on the system or component being assessed, the environment in which it is to operate, and the organisation’s appetite for technical risk.

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Firewall Rule Audit

This service makes use of automated tools and manual inspection, and requires a high level of understanding of the client’s business model and typical Internet use.

The exact process depends on the network and device being assessed, the environment in which it is to operate, and the types of network activity generally permitted.

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ICS/OT Security Review

This assessment seeks to identify the maturity of any technical risk management processes applied to ICS or OT infrastructure, through a combination of policy and procedure review, interviews with appropriate personnel, targeted inspection of equipment, and both passive and active analysis of network connections.

The specific activities performed will vary depending on the environment and the risk profile, however, they typically involve assessment of the following:

• Access control and privilege management.
• Backup and redundancy provision.
• Business continuity and disaster recovery planning.
• Change control and configuration management.
• Credential management.
• Lifecycle support and technical debt.
• Malware protection.
• Network segregation and firewalls.
• Remote access and system management processes.
• Removable media control.
• Safety considerations.
• System hardening and secure baseline configuration.
• Updates and patch management.

ICS/OT infrastructure is often associated with potentially dangerous or operationally critical activities, testing is only ever undertaken by suitably experienced and qualified team members and requires careful scoping.

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