VULNERABILITY MANAGEMENT FOR DISTRIBUTED SOFTWARE SYSTEMS

1 . A method comprising:

receiving vulnerability data indicative of a vulnerability associated with a computing environment from a security scanning platform;

determining a type of the vulnerability;

determining, based on the type of vulnerability, an operating system component, an application component, or both being vulnerable to a security threat;

determining a compute node, of the computing environment, hosting the operating system component, the application component, or both that are vulnerable; and

generating an alert notification indicating that the operating system component, the application component, or both along with the determined compute node are vulnerable to the security threat.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

determining a distributed software system that is impacted by the vulnerability in the operating system component, application component, or both, wherein the distributed software system is a multi-tier application including multiple application components distributed across multiple compute nodes in the computing environment for execution; and

generating an alert notification indicating that the distributed software system is vulnerable.

3 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the operating system component, the application component, or both are vulnerable to the security threat comprises:

fetching process details, port details, or both corresponding to the type of vulnerability;

mapping the process details, port details, or both to the operating system component, the application component, or both; and

determining that the operating system component, the application component, or both being vulnerable to the security threat based on the mapping.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein fetching process details, port details, or both comprises:

collecting metrics corresponding to operating system components, application components, or both via monitoring tool that monitors the computing environment; and

fetching the process details, port details, or both corresponding to the type of vulnerability from the collected metrics.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the type of the vulnerability comprises:

determining the type of the vulnerability by comparing the vulnerability with predefined vulnerabilities.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the type of vulnerability comprises an open port vulnerability, a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability, a cipher suite vulnerability, a code/library vulnerability, or any combination thereof.

7 . The method of claim 1 , wherein generating the alert notification comprises:

determining a recommended action to mitigate a security vulnerability related to the security threat; and

generating the alert notification including the recommended action to mitigate the security vulnerability related to the security threat.

8 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

retrieving vulnerability information associated with the vulnerability from a public database;

generating the alert notification including the vulnerability information; and

presenting the alert notification including the vulnerability information on a graphical user interface, invoking a corresponding application programming interface to send the alert notification including the vulnerability information to a management application, or both.

9 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising:

generating an insight based on the vulnerability information; and

presenting the insight to a user via the graphical user interface, application programming interface (API), or both.

10 . The method of claim 9 , wherein generating the insight comprises at least one of:

categorizing security vulnerabilities related to the security threat based on a type, a severity level, or both associated with the security threat;

providing an application-level visibility, a host-level visibility, or both associated with the security threat;

recommending an action to be performed to mitigate a security vulnerability related to the security threat;

classifying a severity of the security threat based on a vulnerability score; and

exploring an access exploitation and an impact of the security threat.

11 . The method of claim 8 , wherein retrieving the vulnerability information comprises:

transmitting a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) get command to a web server that includes the public database; and

receiving a response to the HTTP get command from the web server, the response including the vulnerability information associated with the vulnerability.

12 . A management node comprising:

a processor; and

memory coupled to the processor, wherein the memory comprises:

a vulnerability insight module to:

receive vulnerability data indicative of a vulnerability associated with a cloud computing environment from a security scanning platform;

determine a type of the vulnerability;

determine, based on the type of vulnerability, an operating system component, an application component, or both being vulnerable to a security threat;

determine a distributed software system, deployed in the cloud computing environment, that is impacted by the vulnerability in the operating system component, application component, or both, wherein the distributed software system is a multi-tier application including multiple application components distributed across multiple compute nodes in the computing environment for execution; and

generate an alert notification indicating that the distributed software system is vulnerable.

13 . The management node of claim 12 , wherein the vulnerability insight module is to:

determine a compute node, of the computing environment, hosting the operating system component, the application component, or both that are vulnerable; and

generate an alert notification indicating that the operating system component, the application component, or both along with the determined compute node are vulnerable.

14 . The management node of claim 12 , wherein the vulnerability insight module is to:

fetch process details, port details, or both corresponding to the type of vulnerability;

map the process details, port details, or both to the operating system component, the application component, or both; and

determine that the operating system component, the application component, or both being vulnerable to the security threat based on the mapping.

15 . The management node of claim 14 , wherein the vulnerability insight module is to:

collect metrics corresponding to operating system components, application components, or both via monitoring tool that monitors the computing environment; and

fetch the process details, port details, or both corresponding to the type of vulnerability from the collected metrics.

16 . The management node of claim 12 , wherein the vulnerability insight module is to determine the type of the vulnerability by comparing the vulnerability with predefined vulnerabilities.

17 . The management node of claim 12 , wherein the vulnerability insight module is to:

determine a recommended action to mitigate a security vulnerability related to the security threat; and

generate the alert notification including the recommended action to mitigate the security vulnerability related to the security threat.

18 . A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium encoded with instructions that, when executed by a processor of a management node, cause the processor to:

receive vulnerability data indicative of a vulnerability associated with a computing environment from a security scanning platform;

determine a type of the vulnerability;

determine, based on the type of vulnerability, an operating system component, an application component, or both being vulnerable to a security threat;

determine a compute node, of the computing environment, hosting the operating system component, the application component, or both that are vulnerable; and

generate an alert notification indicating that the operating system component, the application component, or both along with the determined compute node are vulnerable to the security threat.

19 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 18 , further comprising instructions to:

determine a distributed software system that is impacted by the vulnerability in the operating system component, application component, or both, wherein the distributed software system is a multi-tier application including multiple application components distributed across multiple compute nodes in the computing environment for execution; and

generate an alert notification indicating that the distributed software system is vulnerable.

20 . The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 18 , wherein the instructions to generate the alert notification comprise instructions to:

determine a recommended action to mitigate a security vulnerability related to the security threat; and

generate the alert notification including the recommended action to mitigate the security vulnerability related to the security threat.