One of the many challenges facing Product Management today is addressing client feature requests. Often times, the request for a specific business problem does not translate to other customers or markets. Other times, the request is so complicated to explain, it takes multiple discussions to figure out the root problem and to figure out if the technology can be adapted to even solve the problem. Once in a while, these two challenges overlap with multiple clients and you can state, “ I can do that!” For the release of Retina CS 4.5, this overlap felt like hitting the lottery and we were able to address a few complex issues that target multiple lines of business.
I would like to share a few with you that will be released very soon.
Audit Groups
First, is the relatively simple concept of audit groups (some of you may refer to them as plug-ins). These are static groups that are manually built by the end user or are automatically updated using a service to include new audits or depreciate obsolete checks. Most clients use groups like “All Audits” to perform their scans or targeted groups based on Report Templates. The problem my clients have been trying to solve is how to automatically build these groups based on business logic. This concept is a challenge for every vulnerability assessment tool on the market; not just for Retina, and no one has found a good solution to recover the wasted time required to do this. For example, if the Desktop Team wants to target Adobe vulnerabilities every month, they need to create a new audit group (manually in every tool on the market today) that contains just these checks. Next month, they need to update the group with a new set of queries to include any changes and re-save the audit group. Basically, they run a search, select the changes and save out the difference. If they don’t, they will not be including any new updates and may not remove any depreciated checks. This type of targeting extends into every facet of a business. Users that want to check for Zero-Day, Denial of Service, or even CVE vulnerabilities by year would need to manually build and rebuild the group to include changes. Retina CS 4.5 has addressed this problem with Vulnerability Smart Rules.
Vulnerability Smart Rules
Vulnerability Smart Rules allow users to build groups based on any criteria found in a vulnerability audit. This logic can then be used to dynamically build asset groups, asset filters, and even dynamic audit groups and keep them up to date with no user intervention – at all. For example, if I wanted to build an Audit Group that dynamically updated to include only critical vulnerabilities for a specific vendor, it can. The engine will automatically process any audit updates to the database and rebuild the audit group when needed to include only these checks. These can be used for scheduled scans (with no user intervention) or to filter existing data on the fly for viewing and reports. Below is an example of this new powerful dynamic audit group capability:
Consider the possibilities and complexity that can now be automated to look for specific application checks or even database vulnerabilities without manually tweaking your targeting parameters for every scan.
Calendars
The second feature sounds silly to be discussing but natural to everyone that uses and lives within a calendar for daily conference calls, meetings, and tasks. Traditional vulnerability assessment solutions list scheduled scan jobs and reports in a grid. This is basic job scheduling that includes a sort-able list of what the job name is, when it is scheduled, and other criteria. The problem arises in the enterprise when they have to figure out what to do with hundreds of scan engines, dozens of reports, and a list that covers multiple pages. It is a burden to work with standard filter controls and search dialogue boxes. Furthermore, color coded icons make it difficult to see what runs when and overall their status. To handle more complex jobs clients have been requesting additional metrics and tabs. It took a moment of clarity to reinvent this process the way we do business today and what we came up with is a calendar for scheduling. In Retina CS 4.5, BeyondTrust proudly introduces a brand new calendar view for scheduled scan jobs and reports. This context shows a month at a time, all the jobs scheduled and all the reports completed for each assessment. This is a simple and effective method to handle an age old problem, how to manage your tasks day by day.
Below is an example of this new perspective:
As a Product Manager, translating a client’s needs to technology requires some creativity, talented programmers, and a little luck. Figuring out common problems, sorting through endless feature enhancement requests, and getting lucky with a solution that solves multiple problems just makes the technology better for everyone. Retina CS 4.5 has dozens of new features like these that help put context around your users and assets, and measures their risk to the organization. Stayed tuned, there is more to come on Retina CS 4.5.
Consider the possibilities and complexity that can now be automated to look for specific application checks or even database vulnerabilities without manually tweaking your targeting parameters for every scan.
Calendars
The second feature sounds silly to be discussing but natural to everyone that uses and lives within a calendar for daily conference calls, meetings, and tasks. Traditional vulnerability assessment solutions list scheduled scan jobs and reports in a grid. This is basic job scheduling that includes a sort-able list of what the job name is, when it is scheduled, and other criteria. The problem arises in the enterprise when they have to figure out what to do with hundreds of scan engines, dozens of reports, and a list that covers multiple pages. It is a burden to work with standard filter controls and search dialogue boxes. Furthermore, color coded icons make it difficult to see what runs when and overall their status. To handle more complex jobs clients have been requesting additional metrics and tabs. It took a moment of clarity to reinvent this process the way we do business today and what we came up with is a calendar for scheduling. In Retina CS 4.5, BeyondTrust proudly introduces a brand new calendar view for scheduled scan jobs and reports. This context shows a month at a time, all the jobs scheduled and all the reports completed for each assessment. This is a simple and effective method to handle an age old problem, how to manage your tasks day by day.
Below is an example of this new perspective:
As a Product Manager, translating a client’s needs to technology requires some creativity, talented programmers, and a little luck. Figuring out common problems, sorting through endless feature enhancement requests, and getting lucky with a solution that solves multiple problems just makes the technology better for everyone. Retina CS 4.5 has dozens of new features like these that help put context around your users and assets, and measures their risk to the organization. Stayed tuned, there is more to come on Retina CS 4.5.
Morey J. Haber, Chief Security Officer, BeyondTrust
Morey J. Haber is the Chief Security Officer at BeyondTrust. He has more than 25 years of IT industry experience and has authored three books: Privileged Attack Vectors, Asset Attack Vectors, and Identity Attack Vectors. He is a founding member of the industry group Transparency in Cyber, and in 2020 was elected to the Identity Defined Security Alliance (IDSA) Executive Advisory Board. Morey currently oversees BeyondTrust security and governance for corporate and cloud based solutions and regularly consults for global periodicals and media. He originally joined BeyondTrust in 2012 as a part of the eEye Digital Security acquisition where he served as a Product Owner and Solutions Engineer since 2004. Prior to eEye, he was Beta Development Manager for Computer Associates, Inc. He began his career as Reliability and Maintainability Engineer for a government contractor building flight and training simulators. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.