Page 81 - Cyber Defense eMagazine September 2025

P. 81

The Challenge Lies in Remediation

According to research, 77% of organizations take over a week to deploy patches, while attackers typically
exploit vulnerabilities within just five days.

Organizations know they should act fast, but the process is too manual, resources are insufficient, and
the number of vulnerabilities seems insurmountable. Nevertheless, when teams hesitate and delay
updates, they’re left vulnerable to attacks.

Attackers only take days to cause harm, so closing the gap between vulnerability detection and
remediation must be a top priority. It also means organizations need to expand their focus from detection
to how quickly vulnerabilities are fixed.

Traditional Approaches to Vulnerability Management Hit Roadblocks

A common issue in remediation is that siloed IT and security teams traditionally cause bottlenecks in
patching. While security teams identify threats, IT teams are responsible for maintaining operations and
applying patches. As such, communication gaps increase, which slows down processes.

Many security teams still rely on static spreadsheets or CSV files to share vulnerability data with IT teams
– formats that lack crucial, real-time context such as exploitability, asset exposure, and patch availability.
As such, IT teams need to manually validate threats and search for remediation options, a time-
consuming and error-prone process, particularly when facing thousands of vulnerabilities.

At the core of the issue is a fundamental disconnect: outdated, static data workflows are misaligned with
the urgent need for real-time, actionable intelligence.

The Shift: 5 Steps to Prioritize Remediation

Unpatched vulnerabilities remain a priority for threat actors, and some known vulnerabilities have been
exploited for years. This is largely because patching known vulnerabilities can be complex, time-
consuming, and costly.

Timely patching, centralized patch management, and a sharp focus on time-to-remediation are essential
pillars of a strong security posture. It’s time for organizations to evolve their mindset—from simply
counting vulnerabilities to asking the more urgent question: “How fast are we fixing them?”

Here are five steps for organizations to streamline vulnerability patching and remediation:

1. Connecting processes – exposure management and vulnerability remediation: A modern
vulnerability management platform continuously assesses endpoint exposure, correlating
common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVEs) and rating them by risk factors such as
exploitability and business impact.

76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86