Rapid7 InsightVM Solution Overview: Pros/Cons, Pricing and Tutorial

What Is Rapid7 InsightVM?

Rapid7 InsightVM is a vulnerability management solution that identifies, prioritizes, and remediates vulnerabilities. It offers continuous monitoring of IT environments, providing visibility into the assets and threats within a network.

The platform integrates with existing security frameworks and provides insights, including remediation guidelines, that enable vulnerability management. Using a data analytics engine, InsightVM prioritizes vulnerabilities based on risk, ensuring that the most critical issues are addressed first.

Recommended Reading: What Is SIEM, Why Is It Important and 13 Key Capabilities.

Key Features of Rapid7 InsightVM

Risk Prioritization and Clarity

InsightVM excels in risk prioritization by utilizing a real-time data analytics engine that assesses vulnerabilities and assigns them severity scores. This process enables security teams to focus on the most critical threats first, streamlining remediation efforts. 

The platform’s risk clarity feature intends that users can understand vulnerability impacts for prioritization. In addition to prioritizing risks, InsightVM provides information such as asset criticality and threat likelihood.

Remediation Strategies

Rapid7 InsightVM offers automation and integration remediation strategies. Automated workflows intend to implement fixes and reducing manual efforts. The system integrates with ticketing and patch management tools, ensuring that remediation tasks are seamlessly incorporated into existing processes. By analyzing trends and patterns, InsightVM suggests remediation paths.

Endpoint Assessment

InsightVM provides endpoint assessment, allowing organizations to understand and manage the security of their devices. By examining endpoint configurations, the platform identifies areas of vulnerability and non-compliance, offering recommendations for improvement.

The endpoint data collected helps security teams to detect unauthorized devices.

Technology Integrations

Like other solutions, Rapid7 InsightVM integrates with other security solutions to provide a unified approach to vulnerability management. These integrations include SIEM tools, IT service management systems, and endpoint protection platforms, enabling streamlined security operations to enhance threat response capabilities.

Through its open API, InsightVM facilitates custom integrations, allowing organizations to tailor the platform to their existing toolset.

Rapid7 InsightVM Limitations 

While Rapid7 InsightVM is a respected tool for vulnerability management, it has several limitations that users should be aware of. These limitations were reported by users on the G2 platform:

• Complex setup process: Initial setup can be difficult and time-consuming, especially for new users.
• High cost: Compared to other vulnerability management tools, InsightVM is expensive, which may not suit organizations with tight budgets.
• False positives: Some users report experiencing false positives in scan results, leading to unnecessary remediation efforts.
• Buggy security console: The security console has been reported to have bugs, which can affect its reliability.
• Slow vulnerability identification: The platform can take days to detect certain vulnerabilities, which is a significant drawback for critical issues.
• High administrative overhead: Managing the platform requires considerable administrative effort, particularly for large organizations.
• Resource and memory consumption: InsightVM can consume a lot of memory, and users need to constantly optimize resource usage.
• Limited scalability for large enterprises: Managing multiple scan jobs and asset tagging is not granular enough for very large environments.
• No real-time threat protection: InsightVM lacks a real-time threat protection module, limiting its capabilities for immediate responses.

InsightVM Pricing 

Rapid7 InsightVM pricing is structured based on the number of assets being monitored, with volume-based discounts available for larger asset counts. For example, the cost for managing 500 assets is approximately $1.93 per asset, per month, which amounts to $23.18 per asset annually. Rates can vary depending on the total asset count and any additional service requirements.

Customers can scale their asset count using a sliding scale, with options for managing anywhere from 250 to over 1,250 assets. There are also enterprise pricing plans for larger scale or specialized organizational needs. For more details see the official pricing page.

Tutorial: Getting Started with Rapid7 InsightVM 

This tutorial shows the basic process involved in deploying and using Rapid7 InsightVM. The instructions are adapted from the Rapid7 documentation.

Download and Install on Linux

To install Rapid7 InsightVM on a Linux system, you will need the following:

• The latest Linux installer, along with the corresponding checksum file to verify download integrity.
• A valid product key to activate your license.
• Make sure SELinux is disabled before proceeding with the installation. Additionally, installing the tmux or screen package is recommended to enable interactive terminal sessions for both the security console and the scan engine.

Steps to install:

1. Disable SELinux: Open /etc/selinux/config using a text editor, find the line that starts with SELINUX=, and set the value to disabled. Save and exit the file, then reboot the system for the changes to take effect.
2. Verify the installer: Download the Linux installer and its checksum file. Use the sha512sum command to ensure the file’s integrity. If the verification is successful, you will receive an “OK” message.
3. Make installer executable: Modify permissions with chmod +x <installer_file_name>.
4. Run the installer: Execute the installer using the command ./<installer_file_name> -c. Follow the on-screen prompts to complete the installation.

Get Familiar with the Console

Default items on the homepage:

• Risk and assets over time: This panel shows two line graphs – one for the total number of assets in your environment and another for your overall risk score. The risk score reflects the severity of vulnerabilities found across your assets.

• Sites: A site in InsightVM is a group of assets that you scan together. The sites table on the home page lists all your configured sites, showing their current status and scan metrics.
• Current scans for all sites: This table displays any scans that are currently in progress across all your sites. It provides real-time status updates so you can monitor scan progress and ensure that everything is running smoothly.
• Asset groups: Asset groups are collections of assets that share similar characteristics and are used for ongoing monitoring and reporting. In this panel, you’ll see all the asset groups you’ve created, along with their associated scan results. This is helpful for tracking assets based on specific criteria such as device type, location, or security risk.

• Asset tags: InsightVM allows you to assign tags to your assets, sites, and asset groups. Tags provide additional context, making it easier to manage and filter assets based on attributes like operating system, function, or criticality.
• Filtered asset search: By clicking the filter icon, you can search through your scanned assets using various parameters, such as vulnerability severity, asset location, or operating system. This allows you to quickly identify high-risk assets or specific devices that require immediate attention.
• Search field: The search field allows you to find specific assets, sites, groups, vulnerabilities, or common configuration enumerations (CCEs) by typing in a search string.
• Calendar: Clicking the calendar icon opens a calendar view that shows all scheduled scans, report generation, and blackout periods. This helps you manage the timing of scans and reports.
• Notification center: The notification center provides a central location for all in-product notifications. These are color-coded by importance, allowing you to easily identify critical alerts. Notifications may include important updates, warnings about environmental issues, or suggested actions for improving security.

Create and Scan Your First Site

Here’s an overview of how to create and start scanning a site.

Create a Site:

1. From the home page, click the Create dropdown and choose Site.
2. Name your site and describe it in the Info & Security section.
3. In the Assets section, specify the assets to be scanned by entering their names, IP addresses, or IP ranges.

Set Up Authentication:

1. Go to Authentication, click Add credentials, and provide a name and description.
2. Under the Account tab, select the desired authentication service and enter the required credentials.
3. Test your credentials by providing an IP address or fully qualified domain name (FQDN) and port number. Successful tests will display a green confirmation message.

Run a Full Scan:

4. Select Full audit without web spider from the Select Scan Template tab.
5. Choose the appropriate scan engine under the Select Engine tab.
6. Click Save & Scan to start the full scan.

After the scan starts, you’ll see progress in the Scan progress section. Upon completion, view the scan results, including risk scores for each asset, and prioritize remediation based on the identified vulnerabilities.

Exabeam: Ultimate Rapid7 Alternative

Exabeam is a leading provider of security information and event management (SIEM) solutions, combining UEBA, SIEM, SOAR, and TDIR to accelerate security operations. Its Security Operations platforms enables security teams to quickly detect, investigate, and respond to threats while enhancing operational efficiency.

Key Features:

• Scalable log collection and management: The open platform accelerates log onboarding by 70%, eliminating the need for advanced engineering skills while ensuring seamless log aggregation across hybrid environments.
• Behavioral analytics: Uses advanced analytics to baseline normal vs. abnormal behavior, detecting insider threats, lateral movement, and advanced attacks missed by signature-based systems. Customers report that Exabeam helps detect and respond to 90% of attacks before other vendors can catch them.
• Automated threat response: Simplifies security operations by automating incident timelines, reducing manual effort by 30%, and accelerating investigation times by 80%.
• Contextual incident investigation: Since Exabeam automates timeline creation and reduces time spent on menial tasks, it cuts the time to detect and respond to threats by over 50%. Pre-built correlation rules, anomaly detection models, and vendor integrations reduce alerts by 60%, minimizing false positives.
• SaaS and cloud-native options: Flexible deployment options provide scalability for cloud-first and hybrid environments, ensuring rapid time to value for customers. For organizations who can’t, or won’t move their SIEM to the cloud, Exabeam provides a market-leading, full featured, and self-hosted SIEM.
• Network visibility with NetMon: Delivers deep insight beyond firewalls and IDS/IPS, detecting threats like data theft and botnet activity while making investigation easier with flexible searching. Deep Packet Analytics (DPA) also builds on the NetMon Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) engine to interpret key indicators of compromise (IOCs).

Exabeam customers consistently highlight how its real-time visibility, automation, and productivity tools powered by AI, uplevel security talent, transforming overwhelmed analysts into proactive defenders while reducing costs and maintaining industry-leading support.

Learn more about Exabeam SIEM