Vulnerability management in organizations

The continuous increase of cyber-attacks taking advantage of unpatched vulnerabilities, pushes the organizations to implement a vulnerability management framework to stay protected. This thesis addresses the issue of a correct vulnerability management, studying the problematic in different phases of the vulnerability lifecycle and providing best practices to reduce vulnerabilities in each of them. Moreover, a real-life case study is presented through an internship in SES’s Space Operations department. During the 6-month internship a semi-automated patch management system is configured and used to contribute to the reduction of vulnerabilities discovered in the department’s systems.