A strong vulnerability management (VM) program is not just about running scans occasionally. It’s about having a structured lifecycle that ensures weaknesses are discovered, assessed, and fixed before attackers exploit them.
Below is a step-by-step framework to help IT and security leaders design a repeatable, scalable program.
Step-by-Step Framework
Step 1: Establish Governance
- Define roles and responsibilities (e.g., SOC analysts handle scanning, IT team handles patching, CISOs track risk reporting).
- Set SLAs for remediation timelines:
- Critical: fix within 7 days.
- High: fix within 15 days.
- Medium/Low: address within 30–60 days.
- Create a policy document that outlines processes, exceptions, and escalation paths.
Example: A financial services company may enforce stricter SLAs for internet-facing applications, while giving longer timelines for internal systems.
Step 2: Asset Discovery
- Maintain a full inventory of servers, endpoints, cloud, containers, IoT, and shadow IT.
- Tag assets by criticality (customer-facing apps > test servers).
- Use tools like Qualys, Rapid7, Tenable.io, or cloud-native discovery tools.
- Integrate inventory with a CMDB to avoid blind spots.
Step 3: Vulnerability Scanning
- Run regular authenticated and unauthenticated scans.
- Align scans with business operations (after patch releases or during maintenance).
- Consider specialized tools:
- Web apps: Burp Suite, OWASP ZAP.
- Containers: Aqua Security, Anchore.
- Cloud-native: AWS Inspector, Azure Security Centre.
- Always test in staging before production.
Step 4: Prioritization and Risk Scoring
- Use CVSS as a baseline, enhanced with:
- Asset criticality.
- Exposure level (internal vs. external).
- Exploit availability (from threat intel feeds).
- Rank vulnerabilities:
- Immediate remediation: actively exploited.
- Scheduled remediation: high-risk, not yet weaponized.
- Monitor only: low impact.
Example: A medium-severity flaw on a public-facing server with known exploits should be fixed before a high-severity flaw on an isolated lab machine.
Step 5: Remediation and Mitigation
- Assign tasks to IT/DevOps with clear timelines.
- Common actions:
- Patching OS/apps.
- Config changes (close unused ports, disable weak ciphers).
- Compensating controls (firewalls, segmentation).
- Track progress with tools like Jira, ServiceNow, ITSM.
- Document exceptions and apply compensating controls where patching isn’t possible.
Step 6: Monitoring and Reporting
- Monitor feeds like NVD, vendor advisories, threat intel platforms.
- Re-scan to validate remediation.
- Build dashboards/reports showing:
- Trends over time.
- SLA compliance.
- High-risk asset exposure.
- Tailor reports:
- Executives: risk posture and business impact.
- IT/Security teams: technical details and priorities.
Example Monitoring Metrics
- SLA compliance rate (%)
- Number of open vulnerabilities by severity
- Average remediation time
Step 7: Continuous Improvement
- Review program quarterly or biannually.
- Update SLAs as threats and business needs evolve.
- Run lessons-learned sessions after incidents.
- Integrate VM with SIEM, SOAR, and incident response.
Example: If SLAs are missed, investigate root causes (resource gaps, lack of automation, poor coordination).
How DeepAegis Strengthens Vulnerability Management
At DeepAegis, we help organizations operationalize these seven steps by offering:
- Governance frameworks with tailored SLAs and ownership models.
- Advanced discovery & scanning across on-prem, cloud, and hybrid setups.
- Risk-based prioritization using actionable intelligence.
- Hands-on remediation (patching, hardening, compensating controls).
- 24/7 continuous monitoring and proactive alerting.
- Tailored reporting for executives and IT/security teams.
- Program optimization reviews to keep improving maturity.
With DeepAegis, vulnerability management becomes more than a checkbox—it evolves into a structured, measurable, and resilient defense strategy.