A Shift from Manual To Automated Vulnerability Management With SCAP

The Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) is a technique for employing specific standards to help in automated vulnerability management, policy compliance evaluation (e.g., FISMA compliance) and measurement. The National Vulnerability Database (NVD) is the U.S. government content repository for SCAP. It permits the security administrators to scan software, computers and gadgets which are based on a predetermined security baseline and are ascertained if the software patches are executed to the standard, they are being compared to.It merges a host of open standards that are employed to enlist the configuration issues and the software flaws, related to the security.

The demand of SCAP is now high for being an efficient automated process for vulnerability management and hence the various eminent organizations are hiring SCAP developers. You could make a profitable career as a SCAP developer by doing a SCAP certification course.

SCAP consists of two main components:

1. SCAP Content

The modules for the SCAP content are the available content developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) and the industry partners. The content modules are developed from the secure configurations, agreed to by NIST and its SCAP partners. SCAP comprises of security checklist data which is a configuration checklist, written in automated XML formats or machine readable languages. The SCAP checklists conform to a style guide and SCAP template to assure compatibility with the SCAP services and products. These SCAP templates and style guides, discuss the requirements for including the SCAP mappings and enumerations in the checklist. The SCAP test procedures, which are the low-level checks of machine state, written in OVAL,are used in conjunction with the SCAP checklists. Due to the rising requirement of SCAP developers, do a SCAP training course for a bright future.

SCAP Components

• Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE)

• Common Configuration Enumeration (CCE) (prior web-site at MITRE)

• Common Platform Enumeration (CPE)

• Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE)

• Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS)

• Extensible Configuration Checklist Description Format (XCCDF)

• Open Vulnerability and Assessment Language (OVAL)

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) system offers a reference-method for the publicly accepted information-security exposures and vulnerabilities.

Common Configuration Enumeration (CCE): CCE offers unique identifiers to system the issues of configuration, in order to help accurate and fast correlation of configuration data across the information tools and sources.

Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) is a standardized technique for identifying and describing the operating systems, hardware gadgets present in an organization’s evaluating assets and classes of applications.

The Common Weakness Enumeration Specification (CWE) offers a common language for discussing, dealing and finding the causes of the vulnerabilities of software security, as are present in design, code or the system architecture. Each of the individual CWE represents a single kind of vulnerability.

Open Vulnerability and Assessment Language (OVAL) is an information security, international and community standard to foster the publicly available security content, and to systematize the transport of the information across the range of services and security tools.. OVAL involves a language employed to encode the system details, and is a medley of content repositories, which are held all through the community.

The Extensible Configuration Checklist Description Format (XCCDF) is an XML format, specifying the benchmarks, security checklists and configuration documentation.

2. SCAP Scanners

A SCAP scanner is an instrument that helps in comparing a patch level or application’s configuration or a target computer against the baseline of the SCAP content. This tool notes any deviations and thereby furnishes a report. Some of the SCAP Scanners also have the capability to amend the target computer, so that it is in compliance with the standard baseline. A multitude of open-source and commercial SCAP Scanners are available, depending on the feature set that is required. Some scanners are meant for individual PC use and others for enterprise-level scanning.

Command a handsome salary from a reputed organization by doing SCAP certifications.