Vulnerability management has become an essential component of cybersecurity for construction firms in 2024, with most organisations now recognising that vulnerability management tools are something they need to invest in to keep their business secure.
However, with a multitude of products offering various functions and pricing structures, selecting the ideal VMDR or vulnerability scanner that is most suitable for your industry can be a daunting task.
These are some of the top-of-the-range vulnerability tools in 2024 that are most suited to working in a construction environment.
Darktrace
Darktrace is a Cambridge-based firm that employs its own AI technology to identify, counteract and recover from cyber attacks.
The UK-based firm has over 2200 staff in 30 offices situated around the globe. The product features impressive customer reviews with around 95% giving Darktrace either 4 or 5 stars in total on Gartner.com.
Darktrace is a vulnerability scanner with a difference and is especially suited to the complex network environments of construction businesses.
Darktrace does more than “scan” your network for potential vulnerabilities and threats. Using an unsupervised machine learning technique, the software develops its own understanding of the normal operation of your network or “pattern of life” as they describe it.
From this baseline of normal activity, Darktrace can detect any potential threats as they emerge in real time.
The main downside of Darktrace is the cost, priced higher than some of its competitors, it may represent too much of an investment for some smaller construction firms.
There is also some suggestion that the system could lead to false positives or alerts of threats that turn out to be no real risk at all and require manual checking.
This does not, however, seem to be a feature of many of the customers’ product reviews, but where these instances occur, the machine learning aspect makes it difficult to configure the system or set a higher threshold for the alerts. As is the case with many AI-based tools, there is probably nobody who really fully understands how it works and this makes unpicking the process and changing things slightly difficult in some cases.
Tenable Nessus
For those in the construction industry, one of the key elements of their cybersecurity is access privileges based on the varying roles within the company.
Many data breaches are facilitated by either human error or malicious intent from the inside of an organisation and controlling who has access to certain data is a key component of their cyber defence.
Tenable Nessus is a highly effective vulnerability scanner that also features role-based access controls, making it particularly suited to the construction industry.
Take for example, some highly valuable architectural designs or other similar intellectual property that may be processed or stored by the construction business itself - the architects and engineers might need full access to manipulate and alter the file as they see fit, but the staff member working on the front desk certainly doesn't.
Whereas the client should be able to view the document, they don’t necessarily need access to be able to edit or accidentally change or delete the original file.
With Tenable Nessus construction business owners can easily set the levels of access for contractors, subcontractors, clients and remote teams, helping to mitigate some of the vulnerabilities associated with data being exposed to the wrong parties.
Tenable Nessus and particularly the advanced package Nessus Expert is a high-end vulnerability tool useful for small and medium-sized construction firms as well as cybersecurity experts with its advanced functionality and customisation options, real-time reporting and user-friendly interface.
On larger and more complex networks there can be some slowdown as the system struggles to scan all the applications and devices that are connected to the network, although reports of this are very infrequent and Tenable Nessus is highly praised by its customers and industry experts.
Rapid 7 InsightVM
Rapid 7 InsightVM is a vulnerability tool that is particularly suited to the construction industry for a number of reasons.
With many vulnerability tools, you get a number of false positives or excessive alerts that need to be manually picked through by cybersecurity engineers, which is not especially useful for a busy construction business.
With Rapid 7 one of the key features that sets it apart is the risk prioritisation that shows easily which vulnerabilities are most critical and in need of urgent attention. This reduces time spent going through constant alerts about threats that never existed in the first place.
Rapid 7 has a user-friendly interface, a wide range of scanning options and is more reasonable in terms of price, making it a valid option for small and medium-sized construction firms.
Rapid 7 InsightVM is sold as both vulnerability management software and a fully managed cybersecurity service with a dedicated help team to monitor and respond to any incidents.
Whilst functions such as risk prioritisation certainly help with the flow and organisation of the information being presented to you, this does not mean that the product is completely free from false positives and some users have reported that excessive information and alerts can paint a confusing picture and a slight sense of information overload.
Contact Lyon
At Lyon, we help construction firms to stay at the top of their game with a range of advanced technology and managed solutions.
If you would like more information on vulnerability management tools for the construction industry or any other tech you may be interested in adopting then contact our friendly advisors today.
We provide a range of solutions, including
- Cloud-based Data Storage
- Cybersecurity Services
- Infrastructure Monitoring
- Vulnerability Management and Scanning
- Live Help Desks and Support
- IT Governance and Business Continuity
Get in touch with our experts and we can take you through the best options for your construction business.
