Vulnerability Assessment
Perform a vulnerability assessment of all endpoints in your network using Cortex XDR. This includes CVE, endpoint, and application analysis.
Cortex XDR vulnerability assessment enables you to identify and quantify the security vulnerabilities on an endpoint. After evaluating the risks to which each endpoint is exposed and the vulnerability status of an installed application in your network, you can mitigate and patch these vulnerabilities on all the endpoints in your organization.
Legacy Vulnerability Assessment
For a comprehensive understanding of the vulnerability severity, Cortex XDR retrieves the latest data for each Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) from the NIST National Vulnerability Database, including CVE severity and metrics.
Danger
The following are prerequisites for Cortex XDR to perform a vulnerability assessment of your endpoints.
Requirement
Description
Licenses and Add-ons
Cortex XDR Pro per Endpoint license.
Host Insights Add-on.
Supported Platforms
Windows
Cortex XDR agent 7.1 or a later release.
Cortex XDR lists only CVEs relating to the operating system, and not CVEs relating to applications provided by other vendors.
Cortex XDR retrieves the latest data for each CVE from the NIST National Vulnerability Database as well as from the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC).
Cortex XDR collects KB and application information from the agents but calculates CVE only for KBs based on the data collected from MSRC and other sources
For endpoints running Windows Insider, Cortex XDR cannot guarantee an accurate CVE assessment.
Cortex XDR does not display open CVEs for endpoints running Windows releases for which Microsoft no longer fixes CVEs.
Linux
Cortex XDR agent 7.1 or a later release.
Cortex XDR collects all the information about the operating system and the installed applications, and calculates CVE based on the the latest data retrieved from the NIST.
MacOS
Cortex XDR agent 7.1 or a later release.
Cortex XDR collects only the applications list from MacOS without CVE calculation.
If Cortex XDR doesn't match any CVE to its corresponding application, an error message is displayed, "No CVEs Found".
Setup and Permissions
Ensure Host Inventory Data Collection is enabled for your Cortex XDR agent.
Limitations
Cortex XDR calculates CVEs for applications according to the application version, and not according to application build numbers.
Enhanced Vulnerability Assessment
The Enhanced Vulnerability Assessment mode uses an advanced algorithm to collect extensive details on CVEs from comprehensive databases and to produce an in-depth analysis of the endpoint vulnerabilities. Turn on the Enhanced Vulnerability Assessment mode from Settings → Configurations → Vulnerability Assessment. This option may be disabled for the first few days after updating Cortex XDR as the Enhanced Vulnerability Assessment engine is initialized.
Danger
The following are prerequisites for Cortex XDR to perform an Enhanced Vulnerability Assessment of your endpoints.
Requirement
Description
Licenses and Add-ons
Cortex XDR Pro per Endpoint license.
Host Insights Add-on.
Supported Platforms
Windows
Cortex XDR agent 8.3 or a later release.
Cortex XDR collects all the information about the operating system and the installed applications, and calculates CVE based on the latest data retrieved from the NIST.
CVEs that apply to applications that are installed by one user aren't detected when another user without the application installed is logged in during the scan.
MacOS
Cortex XDR agent 8.3 or a later release.
Cortex XDR collects all the information about the operating system and the installed applications, and calculates CVE based on the latest data retrieved from the NIST.
Setup and Permissions
Ensure Host Inventory Data Collection is enabled for your Cortex XDR agent.
Certificates for Windows and macOS
When Advanced Vulnerability and Assessment is enabled, these certificates are a prerequisite for Windows and macOS.
Download the certificates from here.
Import the Digicert Trusted Root G4 certificate into the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store in the local machine.
In some environments, if the scan does not initialize, the DigiCert Trusted G4 Code Signing RSA4096 SHA384 2021 CA1 certificate, may also be required.
Import the signed certificate into the Intermediate Certification Authorities store in the local machine.
Limitations
Some CVEs may be outdated if the Cortex XDR agent wasn't updated recently.
Application versions which have reached end-of-life (EOL) may have their version listed as 0. This doesn't affect the detection of the CVEs.
Some applications are listed twice. One of the instances may display
invalid version, however, this doesn't affect the functionality.The scanning process may impact performance on the Cortex XDR agent during scanning. The scan may take up to two minutes.
Certificates for Windows and macOS
You can access the Vulnerability Assessment panel from Assets → Vulnerability Assessment.
Once enabling the feature for the first time, it may take up to a week to get the updated data into the platform. Re-collecting the data from all endpoints in your network could take up to 6 hours. After that, Cortex XDR initiates periodical recalculations to rescan the endpoints and retrieve the updated data. If at any point you want to force data recalculation, click Recalculate. The recalculation performed by any user on a tenant updates the list displayed to every user on the same tenant.
CVE Analysis
To evaluate the extent and severity of each CVE across your endpoints, you can drill down into each CVE in Cortex XDR and view all the endpoints and applications in your environment that are impacted by the CVE. Cortex XDR retrieves the latest information from the NIST public database. From Assets → Host Insights → Vulnerability Assessment, select CVEs on the upper-right bar. This information is also available in the va_cves dataset, which you can use to build queries in XQL Search.
If you have the Identity Threat Module enabled, you can also view the CVE analysis in the Host Risk View. To do so, from Assets → Asset Scores, select the Hosts tab, right click on any endpoint, and select Open Host Risk View.
For each vulnerability, Cortex XDR displays the following default and optional values.
Value
Description
Affected endpoints
The number of endpoints that are currently affected by this CVE. For excluded CVEs, the affected endpoints are N/A.
Applications
The names of the applications affected by this CVE.
CVE
The name of the CVE.
Tip
You can click each individual CVE to view in-depth details about it on a panel that appears on the right.
Description
The general NIST description of the CVE.
Excluded
Indicates whether this CVE is excluded from all endpoint and application views and filters, and from all Host Insights widgets.
Platforms
The name and version of the operating system affected by this CVE.
Severity
The severity level (Critical, High, Medium, or Low) of the CVE as ranked in the NIST database.
Severity score
The CVE severity score is based on the NIST Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). Click the score to see the full CVSS description.
You can perform the following actions from Cortex XDR as you analyze the existing vulnerabilities:
View CVE details—Left-click the CVE to view in-depth details about it on a panel that appears on the right. Use the in-panel links as needed.
View a complete list of all endpoints in your network that are impacted by a CVE—Right-click the CVE and then select View affected endpoints.
Learn more about the applications in your network that are impacted by a CVE—Right-click the CVE and then select View applications.
Exclude irrelevant CVEs from your endpoints and applications analysis—Right-click the CVE and then select Exclude. You can add a comment if needed, as well as Report CVE as incorrect for further analysis and investigation by Palo Alto Networks. The CVE is grayed out and labeled Excluded and no longer appears on the Endpoints and Applications views in Vulnerability Assessment, or in the Host Insights widgets. To restore the CVE, you can right-click the CVE and Undo exclusion at any time.
Endpoint Analysis
To help you assess the vulnerability status of an endpoint, Cortex XDR provides a full list of all installed applications and existing CVEs per endpoint and also assigns each endpoint a vulnerability severity score that reflects the highest NIST vulnerability score detected on the endpoint. This information helps you to determine the best course of action for remediating each endpoint. From Assets → Vulnerability Assessment, select Endpoints on the upper-right bar. This information is also available in the va_endpoints dataset. In addition, the host_inventory_endpoints preset lists all endpoints, CVE data, and additional metadata regarding the endpoint information. You can use this dataset and preset to build queries in XQL Search.
For each vulnerability, Cortex XDR displays the following default and optional values.
Value
Description
CVEs
A list of all CVEs that exist on applications that are installed on the endpoint.
Endpoint ID
Unique ID assigned by Cortex XDR that identifies the endpoint.
Endpoint name
Hostname of the endpoint.
Tip
You can click each individual endpoint to view in-depth details about it on a panel that appears on the right.
Last Reported Timestamp
The date and time of the last time the Cortex XDR agent started the process of reporting its application inventory to Cortex XDR.
MAC address
The MAC address associated with the endpoint.
IP address
The IP address associated with the endpoint.
Platform
The name of the platform running on the endpoint.
Severity
The severity level (Critical, High, Medium, or Low) of the CVE as ranked in the NIST database.
Severity score
The CVE severity score based on the NIST Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). Click the score to see the full CVSS description.
You can perform the following actions from Cortex XDR as you investigate and remediate your endpoints:
View endpoint details—Left-click the endpoint to view in-depth details about it on a panel that appears on the right. Use the in-panel links as needed.
View a complete list of all applications installed on an endpoint—Right-click the endpoint and then select View installed applications. This list includes the application name, and version, of applications on the endpoint. If an installed application has known vulnerabilities, Cortex XDR also displays the list of CVEs and the highest Severity.
(Windows only) Isolate an endpoint from your network—Right-click the endpoint and then select Isolate the endpoint before or during your remediation to allow the Cortex XDR agent to communicate only with Cortex XDR .
(Windows only) View a complete list of all KBs installed on an endpoint—Right-click the endpoint and then select View installed KBs. This list includes all the Microsoft Windows patches that were installed on the endpoint and a link to the Microsoft official Knowledge Base (KB) support article. This information is also available in the host_inventory_kbs preset, which you can use to build queries in XQL Search.
Retrieve an updated list of applications installed on an endpoint—Right-click the endpoint and then select Rescan endpoint.
Application Analysis
You can assess the vulnerability status of applications in your network using the Host inventory. Cortex XDR compiles an application inventory of all the applications installed in your network by collecting from each Cortex XDR agent the list of installed applications. For each application on the list, you can see the existing CVEs and the vulnerability severity score that reflects the highest NIST vulnerability score detected for the application. Any new application installed on the endpoint will appear in Cortex XDR within 24 hours. Alternatively, you can re-scan the endpoint to retrieve the most updated list.
Note
Starting with macOS 10.15, Mac built-in system applications are not reported by the Cortex XDR agent and are not part of the Cortex XDR Application Inventory.
From Incident Response → Host Inventory, select Applications.
To view the details of all the endpoints in your network on which an application is installed, right-click the application and select View endpoints.
To view in-depth details about the application, left-click the application name.
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