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Qualys: Enterprise Security and Compliance Platform
Qualys is a cloud-based platform that provides organisations with a broad set of tools for security, compliance, and IT asset management. It is widely used across industries to identify vulnerabilities, maintain compliance, and continuously monitor infrastructure — all from a single console.
🔍 What is Qualys?
Qualys is a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution that offers vulnerability management, policy compliance, file integrity monitoring, and more. It uses lightweight cloud agents and scanners to deliver continuous visibility and threat detection across on-premises, cloud, container, and mobile environments.
🚀 Key Features
1. Vulnerability Management (VMDR)
Identifies and prioritises vulnerabilities using real-time threat intelligence and machine learning. Allows you to track remediation efforts and validate fixes.
2. Policy Compliance
Assesses and reports on compliance with internal security policies and external regulations like PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOX, and GDPR.
3. Global IT Asset Inventory
Provides a continuously updated inventory of all hardware and software assets across your network.
4. Patch Management
Enables automated patch deployment to fix vulnerabilities directly from the same platform.
5. Web Application Scanning
Finds vulnerabilities such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting in public-facing and internal web apps.
6. Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
Assesses the security posture of public cloud services (AWS, Azure, GCP) and provides remediation guidance.
7. File Integrity Monitoring (FIM)
Tracks changes to critical files and system configurations for forensic analysis and compliance audits.
8. Container Security
Scans container images and registries to ensure compliance before deployment.
🧩 How It Works
Qualys deploys lightweight cloud agents or network scanners to collect data from systems. This information is securely transmitted to the Qualys Cloud Platform, where it is analysed and correlated to deliver actionable insights. There’s no need to install on-premises infrastructure, which simplifies deployment and scalability.
🎯 Why Use Qualys?
- Centralised View of Risk across hybrid environments
- Automated Security Operations to reduce human error
- Fast Deployment with minimal maintenance overhead
- Trusted by Fortune 500 Companies and major MSSPs
- Meets Global Compliance Standards
🛡️ Who Uses Qualys?
Qualys is widely used by:
- Security Operations Centres (SOCs)
- IT and compliance teams
- Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs)
- Enterprises needing continuous security monitoring
🔗 Learn More
Official Website: https://www.qualys.com
Documentation: https://docs.qualys.com
Demo & Training: https://www.qualys.com/training/
✅ Summary
Qualys is a leading cloud-native security and compliance solution that helps organisations:
- Discover and track assets
- Find and fix vulnerabilities
- Maintain continuous compliance
- Secure modern IT environments including cloud, containers, and remote endpoints
It’s an essential platform for enterprises aiming to modernise their cybersecurity and risk management strategies.
🚀 Key Features
1. Vulnerability Management (VMDR)
Qualys VMDR (Vulnerability Management, Detection and Response) helps identify, classify, prioritise, and remediate vulnerabilities across all assets. It uses:
- CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) identifiers to track known vulnerabilities.
- Integrated threat intelligence to assess exploitability, malware association, and zero-day activity.
- A built-in risk-based prioritisation engine to guide remediation efforts based on real-world risk.
It enables security teams to:
- Scan all assets for known vulnerabilities.
- See which systems are affected.
- Automatically deploy patches or initiate tickets for remediation.
- Verify whether fixes have been applied successfully.
📊 How Qualys Scores and Prioritises Vulnerabilities
Qualys uses a combination of external standards and internal analytics to assess risk and guide remediation:
- CVE Identification: Each vulnerability discovered is mapped to a CVE entry, ensuring alignment with industry-standard vulnerability tracking.
- CVSS Scoring: It leverages the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS v2 and v3) to assign severity scores (0–10) based on exploitability, impact, and complexity.
- Qualys TruRisk™ Score: In addition to CVSS, Qualys provides its own TruRisk score — a proprietary risk score that factors in:
- Real-world exploit data
- Threat actor activity
- Exploit availability (e.g. in Metasploit, ExploitDB)
- Asset criticality
- Lateral movement risk
- Patch availability and ease of remediation
- Prioritisation Tags & Dashboards: You can filter by severity, exploitability, asset group, or compliance impact to prioritise what’s most important to fix first.
This approach helps security teams cut through the noise — for example, by addressing actively exploited vulnerabilities even if their base CVSS score is moderate.