Page 168 - Cyber Defense eMagazine September 2025

Relying on a reactive incident response plan can financially devastate a company trying to fight AI-
generated attacks with traditional tools, which is why automating your vulnerability scanner is critical for
managing future risk. Routine scanners can easily identify vulnerabilities based on installed packages.
However, they often ignore what’s going on in-memory: creating a major blindspot for IT teams. By only
monitoring installed packages and not the live state of the system, false alarms will continue to clutter
scanners.

Don’t Let Traditional Vulnerability Scanners Jeporadize Operations

Sysadmins need clarity, not clutter. Reducing excessive false positives starts with implementing a
vulnerability assessment solution that has the built-in intelligence for in-memory patch awareness. Not
only should it be able to recognize patched systems, it should also be able to understand whether updates
were applied through rebootless patching, extended support channels, or manual fixes. Operating with
this level of clarity allows the scanner to rapidly triage the most urgent threats, completely eliminating the
need to manually vet flagged CVE’s for vulnerabilities.

With in-memory awareness monitoring comes an emphasis on rebootless patching that can streamline
the identification, testing and deployment of patches across the IT infrastructure. Traditional patching
processes have long required extended downtime and routine maintenance windows that pose a risk to
day-to-day operations. But opting to automate the process means critical security patches can be applied
to bugs and vulnerabilities directly to the kernel in real time. Not only does this help companies avoid
having to pay for costly, vendor-specific live patching solutions or support packages, but it also helps
satisfy a number of compliance requirements including CIS controls, NIST CSF, and PCI DSS.

AI-assisted risk analysis also enables security teams to remediate threats more efficiently while
streamlining compliance reporting. With a lightweight CLI tool that allows unprivileged scans, automated
scheduling and integration into existing workflows, the burden of remediation gets greatly reduced without
compromising visibility or control.

Cut Through the Noise

While it cannot be expected to replace human judgement and oversight, a vulnerability scanner enhanced
by AI undoubtedly serves as an essential tool for sysadmins to have in their back pocket in the fight
against today’ threats. From reducing risk exposure, to streamlined reporting, proactive vulnerability
scanning can not only save time and resources, but also provide security teams with the freedom they
need to focus on their core business.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – September 2025 Edition 168
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