Josh McLaughlin, a security engineer at LivePerson, has done an impressive job creating a seamless automated workflow. This innovation significantly increases risk management efficiency of vulnerability management across the organization. This enterprise-ready, collaborative, and extensible solution produced approximately 76% less manual work for security analysts. It gives them the authority to control key decision-making processes. Even before this acquisition, LivePerson’s security team was already incorporating automation and orchestration into their workflow. By implementing this upgrade, we’ve decreased the time required to process new vulnerabilities by an amazing 60 percent.
The adoption of this innovative workflow represents a critical step in helping security teams remain aware of evolving threats. The backend system automates the process of pulling new advisories from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) known exploited vulnerabilities list and other selected open-source feeds. This makes sure analysts can stay current on vulnerabilities that may affect their operations. This forward-thinking strategy is necessary in an age where the threat landscape is constantly changing and expanding.
Enhancing Efficiency and Morale
The introduction of McLaughlin’s pre-built workflow has created a substantial boost in both operational efficiency and analyst morale at LivePerson. By automating the process, it removes numerous steps that used to eat up priceless time. This frees up analysts to focus on the more tactical, strategic side of their jobs.
“Before automation, creating tickets for 45 vulnerabilities took about 150 minutes of work,” McLaughlin stated. The old process was very labor-intensive. It meant a lot of copy-pasting and jumping from one website to another just to get the right info.
Once the automated workflow was in place, LivePerson’s security team saw an immediate, drastic decrease in efforts associated with this process.
“After automation, the time needed for the same number of tickets dropped to around 60 minutes, saving significant time and freeing analysts from manual tasks like copy-pasting and web browsing,” McLaughlin explained. This substantial change has greatly increased productivity. It further improved analyst morale, enabling staff to have greater focus on incisive critical analysis rather than being mired in bureaucratic housekeeping.
Streamlined Decision-Making Process
Beyond improving efficiency, the automated workflow gives analysts important decision points along the way. Whenever new vulnerabilities are publicly disclosed, CrowdStrike enriches them with our industry-leading threat intelligence. The system then decenters the security team by alerting them through Slack in order to force them to react to the real-time information.
Analysts are then able to quickly respond to these notifications using the intuitive approve and deny buttons directly in Slack. This creates a more efficient process for input and much faster decision-making. As soon as approval is given by the team, the workflow is activated. Then it automatically creates a ServiceNow ticket with all the vulnerability’s key details.
This feature helps keep the security team in the loop and in control while enjoying the fruits of security-boosting operational efficiencies. It keeps analysts involved in the vulnerability management pathway without burdening them with mundane activities that risk disengagement.
Future of Vulnerability Management
LivePerson’s implementation of this automated workflow serves as a model for how forward-thinking organizations can use emerging technology to build a more robust cybersecurity posture. By minimizing manual burdens and speeding up vulnerability response times, organizations can protect themselves more effectively from emerging threats.
Cybersecurity is one field where these challenges evolve at a breathtaking pace. McLaughlin’s automated workflow will be essential in enabling teams to get out in front of these threats. Automation and human oversight must go hand in hand. It makes this security analyst’s work fluent and safe, but empowers them to be in control of critical processes.