10 Best Vulnerability Management Tools – 2023

Vulnerability Management Tools are playing a major role to detect, analyze and patching vulnerabilities in web and network-based applications. Vulnerability, risk, and threat are the most common words used when it comes to security.

Risk is the potential for damage or loss and threat is a negative event that exploits the vulnerability 

Hackers have a chance to access the computing network thanks to security flaws in applications. To protect every asset and the company’s data, it is crucial to find these weaknesses. 

A vulnerability is a weakness or loophole in a system that can be a threat to the system. Vulnerability management Tools are designed in a way to identify those weaknesses. 

All the found vulnerabilities are ranked on the basis of the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) which is used by many security researchers and organizations to assess and specify the severity level of the vulnerabilities. 

In order to protect the system from threats from the outside as well as from within, tools frequently analyze the system or the network for known vulnerabilities and outdated software.

Vulnerability management includes all the processes, plans, and tools to identify, evaluate and report the security vulnerabilities existing in the system or network. 

There are certain tasks that need to be done before starting the vulnerability management process such as determining the scope, selecting tools to identify, providing roles and responsibilities of the team, creating policies and SLAs, etc. 

The vulnerability management procedure can be divided into four steps: Identity, Evaluate, Treat and Report. 

• Identifying Vulnerabilities: – Various vulnerability scanners are used to scan the system, devices working in a network, databases, virtual machines, and servers for open ports, and services to identify potential security flaws. 

• Evaluating Vulnerabilities: – Identified vulnerabilities are then evaluated using the risk score used by the organization, and these vulnerabilities are focused on accordingly. 

• Treating Vulnerabilities: – Remediation, mitigation, and acceptance are three different approaches used to treat a vulnerability based on their priority. 

• Reporting Vulnerabilities: – Reporting is an essential part of any assessment or process. Vulnerabilities found, need to be properly documented that include steps to reproduce, impact, and mitigation. 

Vulnerability management tools are essential to enhance the overall security of the infrastructure and make it more efficient for users and make it more difficult for attackers to make their way into the systems. 

These tools can detect and find ways to mitigate or remediate those vulnerabilities before a malicious attacker can take advantage of the same.

Therefore it is crucial for every business to have a vulnerability management team under its security department. 

Best Vulnerability Management Tools – 2023

Here are the 10 best vulnerability management tools used in incident detection.

Vulnerability Management Tools	Keywords
1. Machine learning automation to continuously analyze more than 20 trillion threats. 2. Frictionless assessment for continuous and near real-time visibility into your AWS exposures. 3. The solution can integrate with third parties and meets standard compliance. 4. Ability to benchmark against recognized good practice 5. Recast Rules” allows the organization to redefine a vulnerability classification.
2. Qualys	1. Automate remediation with no-code workflows.  2 Analyze vulnerabilities and misconfigurations with six sigma accuracy.  3. Over 180k vulnerabilities sourced from 25+ threat sources. 4. The ability to customize profiles and perform scans as per the customer’s requirements. 5. There are no restrictions on adding endpoints.
3. Acunetix	1. Acunetix automatically catalogs vulnerability and assigns it a status of Open.  2. Re-testing of vulnerabilities to make sure it’s properly fixed.  3. Creates macros to automate scanning in password-protected areas. 4. Supports importing state files from other popular application testing tools.
4. F-Secure	1. A web crawler that scans the deep web.  2. Vulnerability management endpoint agent. 3. Automated scanning and reporting with a central single console. 4. Intelligent risk-based prioritization to identify the biggest threats.
5. Rapid 7	1. Cloud and Virtual Infrastructure Assessment. 2. Attack surface monitoring with Project Sonar. 3. Integration with SIEM and virtual infrastructure. 4. Policy builder is its unique feature.  5. Patch management for cloud infrastructure.
6. Tripwire	1. Supports Agent and agentless monitoring.  2. Continuous updates by Tripwire’s vulnerability research team 3. Central console with real-time analytics.  4. Prioritization of vulnerability risks based on severity and scoring.
7. Syxsense	1. Provides real-time data during scans and deployments. 2. Customization of notifications, queries, and reporting.  3. No-code interface grants a drag-and-drop process builder. 4. Proactively quarantines devices to prevent further infection.
8. BreachLock	1. Ticketing system for on-demand support. 2. Provides both manual and automation testing for almost all environments. 3. Using machine learning and artificial intelligence to reduce false-positive results
9. OutPost24	1. Automatically detects vulnerabilities in legacy systems.  2. Automatically assess and understand risk across your networks. 3. Multicloud infrastructure security assessment.  4. Wireless security detection.  5. Agent-based or agentless for every scenario.
10. Astra Pentest	1. Real-time online web portal to interact with vulnerabilities 2. Combination of automated and manual pentesting.  3. Compliance specific tests & view for SOC2, ISO27001, HIPAA etc. 4. Zero false positives due to the combination of automated and manual pentest.

10 Best Vulnerability Management Tools 2023

• Tenable 
• Qualys
• Acunetix
• Tripwire
• F-Secure
• OutPost24
• Rapid 7 
• Syxsense
• BreachLock
• Astra Pentest 

Lets break down the all vulnerability management tools and its features.

1. Tenable 

Tenable is a cutting-edge Vulnerability management software that makes it easier to comprehend each vulnerability’s full context, including the importance of the assets affected and an evaluation of current and likely future attacker activity.

It is a cloud-based vulnerability-management tool that gives the IT security team a full picture of vulnerabilities affecting their network. It works in real-time and constantly provides up-to-date potential security threats. 

It has a diverse checklist of vulnerability databases subsequently it has a great base for exploits and vulnerabilities.

It is highly scalable and provides stable solutions for found vulnerabilities. 

Tenable is easy to set up and configure and won’t consume many hours, also the solution has certain pre-defined templates for assessing and auditing the asset. 

Vulnerability management is the core function of Tenable, and the system does this well, helping users identify and remediate vulnerabilities through an intuitive user interface. 

It uses customizable dashboards to provide a big-picture view of your asset’s total vulnerability scan coverage and highest-risk vulnerabilities. 

By prioritizing the assets and vulnerabilities that matter most while deprioritizing those that attackers are unlikely to exploit, Tenable’s Risk-Based Vulnerability Management Solutions helps to reduce risk to the greatest extent possible with the least amount of work. 

Pros and Cons of Tenable Vulnerability Management Tool

Pros	Cons
Great Research and Development methodology.	Most of the features are paid for.
Complete visibility of the entire environment.	Better dashboard navigation can be implemented.
The initial setup is very straightforward.	Pricing is not so reasonable.
Most extensive CVE and security configuration support	Less flexible and user-friendly.
Very detailed output of the vulnerability findings.	The support is extremely bad.
Automated reporting to keep security teams informed.

Tenable – Download

2. Qualys 

Qualys, a vulnerability management tool is a single solution that identifies all assets in the environment and quantifies risk across vulnerabilities, assets, and groups of assets to proactively mitigate risk exposure. 

It enables businesses to automatically identify every asset in their environment, including unmanaged assets that appear on the network, inventory every piece of hardware and piece of software, and categorize and tag crucial assets.

For rapid vulnerability discovery, prioritization, and automatic vulnerability remediation at scale to lower risk, this tool supports integration with configuration management databases (CMDB) and patch management solutions.

Qualys automatically categorizes all of the hardware found including the servers, databases, and networking components.

It also keeps track of the traffic, software, and services that are installed there, as well as the running statuses of all of these components.  

This tool enables running different capabilities with the same agent. EDR, vulnerability management, compliance, and some fundamental SaaS security features can all be accomplished with just one agent.

The advanced security data indexing included in Qualys’ vulnerability management solutions enables the almost immediate discovery and quarantining of compromised data.

Pros and Cons of Qualys Vulnerability Management Tool

Pros	Cons
Quickly remediate threats at the scale.	Most of the features require licensing.
Manage asset vulnerabilities throughout the complete vulnerability lifecycle.	It takes a long time to fetch the scan results.
Ecstatic user interface and information accuracy.	Poor customer support.
Little to no false positives due to cloud agents.	The mobile endpoint is not as well defined as the cloud endpoint.
Detailed analysis of each vulnerability.
Excellent track record of vulnerability scans.

Qualys – Download

3. Acunetix 

Acuentix is a Vulnerability management software that crawls every corner of the asset and creates a list of all the websites, applications, and APIs within the asset, and keeps it up to date. 

The API that Acuentix provides enables businesses to integrate it into their workflows and processes.

Additionally, users can test switches, routers, and firewalls and find configuration errors with the help of its network security module.

It makes it possible to quickly and simply generate a wide range of technical, regulatory, and compliance reports. Users also have the option of exporting vulnerability data to issue trackers like Atlassian Jira, GitHub, GitLab, etc. 

Due to Acuentix’s unique feature of multiple users and multiple role capabilities, users can only see the content that is intended for them. The dashboard contains all the information about scans and discovery. 

This tool scans the asset in addition to providing comprehensive remediation instructions for addressing vulnerabilities that are found, followed by a retest to make sure the vulnerability was successfully fixed.  

For the protection of customer data, Acunetix does more than just scan every database page; it also blocks black- and gray-hat hacking techniques.

Pros and Cons of Acunetix Vulnerability Management Solutions

Pros	Cons
Scans multiple domains in very less time.	Some versions of the tool are not stable.
Detect over 7,000 vulnerabilities, including zero-days	Fewer configuration options for scans.
Able to schedule daily, weekly, and monthly scans.	Pre-recorded login sequence specifications are more challenging.
Initially, it’s easy to set up and configure.	Does not support multiple endpoints.
Provides reports for developers for developing options.
It has the most suitable licensing model.

4. F-Secure

With secure, formerly known as F-secure, is a complete and simple-to-use vulnerability management tool.

It is an all-in-one vulnerability scanning and management platform that provides clear, actionable, and prioritized visibility into real risks to support organizations’ security programs.

It is a cloud-based platform that offers defense against cutting-edge assaults and ransomware.

It integrates continuous behavioral analytics, automated patch management, dynamic threat intelligence, and vulnerability management. 

Periodically throughout the day, the tool has the ability to check for vulnerabilities, and if anything is found, it can alert the users.

The network can be watched for specific events and alert conditions can be set to watch for them.

F-secure scans cover all of the network assets, deep web, and compliance along with automatically generated reports of activities like brand violations, third-party scams, and phishing sites. 

The F-Secure Elements Vulnerability Management API by default employs the JSON communication format along with the GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE regular HTTP methods. 

It offers advanced protection for Microsoft OneDrive, where it can safely enable hybrid workforce collaboration while detecting and preventing malicious files from being uploaded.

Pros and Cons of F-Secure Vulnerability Management Solutions

Pros	Cons
Real-time protection.	No protection from zero days or forensics.
It scales as the system grows with time.	Lack of ready-to-use templates for compliance checks.
Automated and customized reports.	Inflexible to create your own templates.
Scan templates give an easy way to store a set of options.	Some false vulnerability issues exist in the results.
Less resource utilization with background protection.	Occasionally blocks too many executables thus making the system slow.
Easy to integrate and great alerting response time.

5. Rapid 7 

Rapid 7 provides two different vulnerability management tools, i.e., Rapid 7 Nexpose which is an on-premise vulnerability scanner and the other one is Rapid 7 InsightVM. 

The Rapid 7 platform combines various security solutions which as result enables the team to monitor the network, manage vulnerabilities, investigate and block threats, and automate operations. 

As part of the modern IT environment, including local, remote, cloud, containerized, and virtual infrastructure, InsightVM not only offers visibility into the vulnerabilities but also clarity into how those vulnerabilities translate into business risk. 

Rapid 7 Nexpose is a real-time on-premises vulnerability scanner tool that collects the data from the entire network, prioritizes the vulnerabilities to focus on first, and finally provides solutions for remediation. 

By allowing you to prioritize risk across vulnerabilities, configurations, and controls, Nexpose enables you to assess changes in a real-time environment and respond accordingly, thereby reducing threat exposure. 

Based on how you divide up remediation responsibilities, Nexpose makes it simple to create asset groups, and it’s even simpler to use those groups to generate remediation reports for the teams in charge of those assets.

Rapid 7 is as close to a one-stop pentesting application as it’s possible to have. Reconnaissance Access, Payload, and Closure – all within one application.

Pros and Cons of Rapid 7 Vulnerability Management Solution

Pros	Cons
Track and communicate the progress.	Frequent updates and console lockups.
Easy implementation of RESTful API.	Scheduling can become a nightmare if not monitored closely.
Integration with over 40 technologies.	Scan with Credentials can not be customized or prioritized.
Advanced remediation, tracking, and reporting capabilities.	The agent covers fewer compliance issues.
Large collection of templates for scanning the asset.	The tool does not have a real-time threat protection module
Customized Dashboards, query builders, best remediation module

6. Tripwire

Tripwire is a vulnerability and management tool by FORTRA that detects, prioritizes, and neutralizes the risks of an entire organization. It supports both agentless and agent-based monitoring of the assets. 

This Vulnerability management software generates a vulnerability risk scoring matrix of “Ease of exploitation” and “Risk class of potential host compromise”. These scores automatically increase with age. 

Risk Class reflects the consequences of a successful exploit of the vulnerability.

It uses the following scales: exposure, local availability, local access, local privileged, remote availability, remote access, and remote privileged. 

Tripwire has put audience-specific reporting into place; as a result, it produces different reports for audiences like executives, security teams, audit/compliance teams, and IT operations teams. 

The initial setup is a bit complex and can take around a week or two to deploy the program but it is a robust solution and a complete customization option according to the requirements. 

Tripwire can scan online, offline, and non-running containers for vulnerabilities for an enhanced overall view and a lower chance of vulnerabilities slipping through the cracks during development

With its distinctive application-centric vulnerability assessment methodology, Tripwire looks for particular vulnerabilities in operating systems, applications, and services. 

This guarantees that only the necessary signatures are executed, minimizing undesirable application interactions. Instead of giving a seemingly never-ending list of “high-risk” vulnerabilities.

Pros and Cons of Tripwire Vulnerability Management Tool

Pros	Cons
Highly flexible and Scalable.	Unimpressive technical support.
Advanced vulnerability scoring method.	Creates unwanted network traffic.
Lower network impact.	Inconsistencies in some of the vulnerability findings.
Audience-specific reporting.	Not great with vulnerability tracking.
Low false positives and in-depth examination.
Integrated VM ecosystem.

Tripwire – Download

7. Syxsense 

Syxsense is a vulnerability management tool that has complete visibility and knowledge of every endpoint, in every location, everywhere inside and outside the network, as well as in the cloud.

It combines the power of artificial intelligence with industry expertise to manage and secure endpoints by stopping threats before they occur and neutralizing threats when they happen.

Syxsense delivers security with managed services, 24-hour coverage, and compliance regulation. It includes vulnerability scanning, and patch management enabling organizations to align their core IT management processes with their cybersecurity strategies.

Syxsense allows you to connect with remote computers easily without approving the connection which becomes handy while working with non-technical people.

Besides, the remote control tool can also work as an asset DB and patch management tool. 

You can prioritize device groups and patches based on conditions that you customize to meet the unique needs of your organization based on severity and risk, system configurations, and affected processes using Syxsense’s dynamic queries. 

Pros and Cons of Syxsense VVulnerability management software

Pros	Cons
Zero Trust features are integrated into Syxsense.	Over slower connections, remote control tools can be a little “flakey.”
Easy to connect to a user’s machine remotely.	Switching between monitors is not so good.
No need to manually upload updates.	Often runs into duplicate device IDs for end-user machines.
Ease in packaging the software.	The gap in assessing and deploying patches.
Reduces exposure along with patching and protection.
Rapid detection, intervention, and elimination of security threats.

8. OutPost24

In order to guard against supply chains and business operations being impacted by cyber threats, OutPost24 is a Vulnerability management software that continuously monitors vulnerability trends.  

It delivers security solutions in a Software-as-a-Service (OUTSCAN & OUTSCAN PCI) or Appliance (HIAB) form factor, the latter is also offered as a virtualized appliance.

For complete visibility, OutPost24 uses active scanning, agents, cloud APIs, and CMDB integrations to identify all known and unknown assets in your IT infrastructure, including on-premises, endpoints, clouds, and wireless networks.

Predictive risk scores are provided using sophisticated threat intelligence and potent machine learning, which helps to quickly reduce exposure time and prioritize vulnerability remediation from the attacker’s point of view.

In addition to, automated vulnerability detection, this tool also automates the compliance checks for internal policies and external regulations with continuous PCI compliance scanning that streamlines risk management and safeguards private data.

This vulnerability management tool automatically detects vulnerabilities in outdated systems and critical misconfigurations with deep analysis and has a unique scanless technology to understand all of the security exposure and maintain compliance.

It uses a unique risk-based vulnerability management solution known as ‘Farsight’ that uses integrated threat intelligence to provide risk rating that predicts CVE exploitability, helping you focus on remediating vulnerabilities on priority. 

Pros and Cons of OutPost24 Vulnerability Management Software

Pros	Cons
Ensures compliance and easy reporting.	GUI, dashboards, and reporting are the major drawbacks.
User-friendly internal vulnerability scanner.	Complicated and requires extra effort to maintain it.
Improves prioritization and focused remediation.	Reports contain numerous false positives.
Risk-based vulnerability management solution.
In-depth risk scoring system.
Improves compliance and business process outcomes.

9. BreachLock

BreachLock is cloud powered vulnerability management tool that ensures the process of scanning at regular intervals to avoid manual management and needs just a click for an on-demand scan on one or more assets. 

Initially, BreachLock along with the client determines the full scope of assets that will be tested like domains, servers, and other devices with IP addresses. It also includes distinguishing out-of-scope assets and defining the testing duration. 

This tool allows for increasing the frequency of tests subsequently extending their coverage.

It identifies and fixes the latest security issues using a combination of both manual and automated scanning.

BreachLock can be easily modified to meet organizational needs as a multifunctional tool and is simple to integrate with existing systems. It can be extended to company-wide deployment. 

The BreachLock team gathers and compiles all of the acquired data before giving the customer a thorough report. 

Furthermore, it also includes comprehensive recommendations in order to make logical decisions regarding security.

After the report is read by the client BreachLock does an important job of retesting the assets to determine the effectiveness of finding resolutions and generate an updated report if any changes are found. 

BreachLock performs a dynamic scan on the application in the staging environment, covering both authenticated and non-authenticated parts of the application, and generates detailed reports.

Pros and Cons of BreachLock Vulnerability management software

Pros	Cons
Fast, scalable, and effective.	Needs to enhance the support
Large collection of learning material.	Hidden fees for using different features.
Integration with Jira and the reporting capability.	The product needs to become more resilient.
Cloud based and easy to implement.	Security thresholds need to be increased.
Managed service offering.
Compliance management

10. Astra Pentest 

Astra Pentest is an intelligent automated Vulnerability management software for analyzing and visualizing the vulnerability in the assets, it is coupled with in-depth manual pentesting. 

Besides automation and manual pentest with more than 3000 tests, the platform scans assets for CVEs in OWASP top 10 and SANS 25. It covers all the tests required for ISO 27001, SOC2, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance.

The no-code, dashboard gives admins a simple way of monitoring and managing vulnerabilities.

It shows users the risk scores of each vulnerability based on the CVSS score, potential losses, and overall business impact. 

Astra’s compliance dashboard checks where the application stands concerning various security compliance specific to the industry.

Currently, the available compliance tests for security are – ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and GDPR.

This tool’s  CI/CD integration services help companies move from DevOps To DevSecOps, thus giving more priority to security within every phase of a project’s development. It offers integrations with Slack, GitLab, etc.

Pros and Cons of Astra Pentest Vulnerability management software

Pros	Cons
Integration with CI/CD platforms, Slack, Jira.	It has fewer integration options available.
Maximizes the return on investment (ROI).	May not be capable of detecting some malware attacks that slip through.
Accurate risk scoring and thorough remediation guidelines.	Astra requires external dependency i.e., manual pentesting.
The support is excellent, quick, and thorough.	Difficult to perform pentesting on live assets.
Findings are detailed with clear solutions.
Risk-grading is done for each vulnerability.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a common vulnerability scoring system (CVSS)? 

CVSS is an open-source and free industry standard to assess the severity of computer vulnerabilities. It captures the fundamental design and operation of a vulnerability and produces a numerical score that can also be expressed as low, medium, high, or critical. It enables businesses to appropriately plan their vulnerability management procedure. 

What is an asset in vulnerability management? 

Any hardware or software that is a part of your company’s IT environment is considered an asset. In addition to servers, networks, desktops, laptops, smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices, it also refers to virtual machines, cloud-hosted technologies and services, web applications, and Internet of Things (IoT) gadgets. 

How are vulnerabilities defined? 

Vulnerabilities are defined with the help of the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE), and Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs). These are the most important pillars continuously updated by open source and industries to know about risks and impact of vulnerabilities in detail. 

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