What is Continuous Vulnerability Management?

Continuous vulnerability management (CVM) explained

Continuous vulnerability management (CVM) is the ongoing, systematic process of detecting, prioritizing, and remediating security weaknesses in an organization’s IT infrastructure.

CIS Control 7 centers on CVM. The idea is that by implementing the CVM control, enterprises can strengthen their security posture, resolve security risks preemptively, and significantly shrink their attack window. And the benefits to your bottom line are nothing to write off either—CVM lets businesses avoid the costly and damaging alternative of fixing attack vectors after they’ve been exploited.

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Continuous vulnerability management vs. periodic vulnerability assessments

Next, let’s look at the differences between periodic vulnerability assessments (the traditional method) and continuous vulnerability management. 

Considering the differences between both approaches, it gets easier to understand why and how CVM evolved: The need for on-the-fly vulnerability discovery across development environments, CI pipelines, clouds, and workloads informed the shift to CVM.

Core components of continuous vulnerability management

There are four essential components of CVM:

1.Continuous scanning

Continuous scanning involves deploying non-disruptive automated tools to run 24/7 vulnerability scans on IDE environments, cloud assets, endpoints, networks, and other IT stack components.

This type of scanning evolves dynamically with cloud changes. For example, a newly deployed container has public access enabled when it shouldn’t? Continuous scanning automatically discovers the container and the misconfiguration.

2. Real-time monitoring

Real-time monitoring refers to tracking vulnerabilities, network threats, and access-related activities to reveal anomalies or attempted attacks. It’s powered by a suite of tools, including security information and event management (SIEM) tools, threat feeds, vulnerability databases, vulnerability scanners, and cloud detection and response (CDR) solutions. 

Real-time monitoring works by continuously correlating vulnerability and threat data about new CVEs, planned attacks, and adversarial TTPs with findings in enterprises’ IT environments. This enriches the findings with context, facilitating swift exploit detection, accurate prioritization, and automated response.

The infamous Log4j vulnerabilities provide an example of the major role real-time threat and vulnerability correlation play in CVM: 

• The first Log4j vulnerability was discovered and declared before any patch was available.

• It instantly got a 10/10 CVSS score, warning enterprises of its potential impact.

• Attackers successfully developed an exploit before Apache could roll out patches. 

• Vulnerabilities were found in patch after patch rolled out by Apache. 

With real-time monitoring, enterprises would have stayed on top of their game, isolating affected systems and applying patches the instant they were released, shortening the attack window of each vulnerability until the last one was finally fixed.

3. Risk prioritization 

Risk prioritization involves systematically ranking vulnerabilities by severity, exploitability, potential impact, and business context to channel remediation efforts towards the most critical vulnerabilities first. 

4. Automated remediation 

Automation is an essential part of CVM and includes activities such as automating patching, misconfiguration fixes, and ticketing across build, deployment, and runtime environments. The benefits? Reduced manual effort, fast-tracked remediation, and improved accuracy. 

How continuous vulnerability management works in enterprise environments

Searching for guidance on operationalizing CVM? We have you covered with this six-step workflow:

1.Asset discovery: Continuously inventory all IT assets (especially cloud assets, due to their ephemeral nature). The goal is to automatically locate all assets you want to secure the instant they spin up. 

Remember to inventory…

• Containers

• Runtime images

• VMs

• Storage buckets

• Databases

• APIs

• Serverless functions

• Proprietary code 

• Third-party libraries

• Dependencies

• Versions

Also, integrate vulnerability scanners with existing security infrastructure and tools to correlate and contextualize alerts.

2. Vulnerability scanning and detection: Conduct automated end-to-end vulnerability scans in tandem with real-time monitoring to detect known vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, as well as possible attack paths and suspicious/exploit activity.

Ingest up-to-date vulnerability and threat information (from vulnerability databases like CVE and NVD) and threat intel feeds like the Cloud Threat Landscape. Then, configure your tools to instantly flag vulnerabilities with active exploits. 

3. Risk assessment and prioritization: Apply vulnerability prioritization frameworks like EPSS and CVSS to determine the exploitability and risk level of a vulnerability. 

Customize prioritization and boost prioritization accuracy by adding business-specific insights (e.g., compliance requirements and potential impact on business operations), along with real-time threat intelligence about current or planned attacks. 

4. Reporting/alerting: Configure your CVM tool to both trigger alerts when vulnerabilities reach a specific threshold and send detailed reports for troubleshooting.

5. Remediation: Use a CVM platform that auto-remediates vulnerabilities by…

• Isolating vulnerable components

• Applying patches via integrated patch orchestration tools, ticketing platforms, and package managers

6. Validation: Re-scan to verify that fixes have been effectively applied and vulnerabilities have been mitigated.

7. Continuous monitoring and Integration: As its name implies, CVM requires continuous monitoring for new vulnerabilities. Feed vulnerability and threat data into DevSecOps and SOC loops to enable secure software development and improve runtime defense.

Implementing CVM: Technical challenges and solutions 

Read on to learn the top challenges enterprises face when implementing CVM—and effective solutions to counteract them.

Visibility

For enterprises employing periodic vulnerability scanners, the short-lived resources and autoscaling groups of cloud-native architectures present a critical roadblock—ephemeral assets and the vulnerabilities in them remain undetected for long periods. 

Visibility into legacy or end-of-life systems can also be a showstopper. Why? These systems are often patched using complicated workarounds that make it difficult to keep track of their software components and possible vulnerabilities.

Solution: Because vulnerability management is ineffective without proper asset discovery, enterprises must automate complete visibility by:

• Using cloud-native scanners designed for the cloud’s dynamic nature

• Creating SBOMs to ensure visibility into software versions used in legacy systems 

Agent-based tool limitations

Agent-based tools may underperform in hybrid and multi-cloud environments with millions of widely dispersed and transient resources: Configuring agents on individual resources is impractical and leaves blind spots. 

Solution: Use agentless solutions designed to discover all assets without manual intervention.

Tool sprawl 

Proper CVM implementation requires integrating findings from several tools—vulnerability scanners, monitoring tools, CDR solutions, etc.—to enhance detection accuracy, enrich prioritization, and speed up remediation. But integrating diverse tools can be a major headache. 

Solution: Consider a cloud native application protection platform (CNAPP) for a consolidated approach.

False positives and alert fatigue

Some vulnerability scanners overwhelm security teams with false positives and false negatives. This obscures actual vulnerabilities and sends teams on wild goose chases that leave genuine threats unresolved.

Solution: Use AI-driven tools to identify patterns indicative of vulnerabilities and CNAPPs to correlate findings across multiple environments (for example, pulling security signals from CWPP, KSPM, and DSPM to find out if a runtime vulnerability can lead attackers to sensitive data).

Poor risk prioritization 

Tools that employ only one prioritization method or fail to consider organization-specific risks often incorrectly prioritize risks. For example, CVSS doesn’t account for likelihood of exploitation and EPSS doesn’t consider asset criticality. And even when both are combined, nuanced risks like resources’ proximity to sensitive data or exploitable attack paths must be considered.

Solution: Choose CVM tools that combine multiple prioritization frameworks with business context.

Best practices for implementing continuous vulnerability management

1. Integrate vulnerability scanners with CI/CD pipelines to detect and mitigate vulnerabilities before they get too costly or complicated to fix. 

2. Integrate infrastructure-as-code (IaC) scanning to catch misconfigurations before they’re deployed. CVM isn’t just about runtime—it should start at the build stage by identifying insecure defaults or missing controls in Terraform, CloudFormation, or Helm templates.

3. Adopt a risk-based approach to vulnerability prioritization to focus scarce resources on mitigating critical vulnerabilities.

4. Scan third-party software, container images, and other components for vulnerabilities and align mitigation strategies with your organization's risk management program. 

5. Get stakeholder support. Different roles can provide key insights into your organization’s risk threshold and ensure dedicated tools and teams are provided for vulnerability management.

6. Integrate threat intelligence to focus efforts on active exploits. 

7. Develop a tried-and-tested vulnerability management program that promotes cross-team collaboration (across SOC, security, and IR teams), orchestrates CVM, and facilitates operational efficiency.

8. Remediate vulnerabilities promptly; use tools that automate patch management and vulnerability remediation to speed up the process and minimize errors. 

9. Continuously monitor. Remember: Cloud vulnerability management is an ongoing cycle. The speed at which new resources spin up in the cloud means misconfigurations and other risks are inevitable, and researchers are discovering new vulnerabilities daily. Early detection is always the best defense!

10. Measure CVM effectiveness with KPIs like mean time to detect (MTTD), mean time to remediate (MTTR), and recurrence rates. Then use these metrics to continuously improve CVM.

11. Understand compliance requirements and address associated vulnerabilities to avoid breaches and compliance fines. 

Tools and platforms for continuous vulnerability management

Popular vulnerability management tools include: 

• Wiz: An agentless vulnerability management solution that delivers continuous enterprise-wide vulnerability scans with contextual correlation, risk prioritization, threat intelligence, and auto-remediation

• Amazon Inspector: An automated vulnerability scanner that detects software vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in AWS-native resources

• Google Web Security Scanner: A complementary vulnerability toolkit for uncovering known vulnerabilities in GCP web apps like GKE and App Engine; offers managed and custom web vulnerability scanning

Criteria for selection

Consider the following essential criteria when choosing a vulnerability management tool:

1. Agentless scanning: For fast deployment and full visibility, use agentless tools. While agent-based scanners can provide deep visibility in relatively static environments, agentless solutions are a better fit for the cloud—they connect automatically to enterprise environments via APIs, eliminating the need to set up agents every time a new resource spins up.

2. Coverage: Choose a platform that unifies vulnerability scanning, real-time monitoring, threat intelligence, and risk correlation in one advanced solution.

3. Up-to-date vulnerability data integration: Go for CVM tools that ingest vulnerability data from popular databases in real time. A tool that only updates vulnerability data at scheduled intervals is likely to leave you unprotected from emerging vulnerabilities.

4. AI-powered detection and remediation: Many providers claim to offer AI-powered solutions. Ask for a proof of concept to see how well the solution minimizes false positives and fixes vulnerabilities with little to no manual intervention. 

5. Compliance: Select a tool that automates compliance by instantly flagging deviations and autonomously conducting compliance audits. It’s also best practice for the tool to provide single-pane-of-glass views of your compliance scores across all requisite frameworks.

Wiz for continuous vulnerability management

CVM, if implemented the right way, keeps you several steps ahead of cyberattackers. But to do it right, you need Wiz Cloud. Here’s how Wiz supercharges your CVM:

• Full-stack visibility: Wiz Cloud scans every layer of your cloud environment, from virtual machines to containers, providing a complete picture of potential vulnerabilities. With Wiz, you can be sure there are no blind spots.

• Graph-based contextual analysis: The Wiz Security Graph correlates all security risks across different environments (development, deployment, and runtime) and assets (containers, storage, APIs, and more), offering a contextual understanding of vulnerabilities and their potential impact. With its advanced correlation capabilities, Wiz minimizes false positives and visualizes attack paths in your environment.

• Automated compliance and remediation: Wiz Cloud automates compliance checks and supports auto-remediation, ensuring that vulnerabilities are addressed promptly and efficiently.

• Risk prioritization: Wiz Cloud prioritizes vulnerabilities based on their context and potential impact, helping organizations focus on the most critical issues first.

• Integration with development workflows: With capabilities like IaC scanning, Wiz Cloud integrates security checks early in the development process, preventing vulnerabilities from reaching production. Wiz integrates directly with developer workflows via IaC scanning, pipeline integration, and developer-centric remediation guidance—enabling shift-left security that scales. This reduces friction and helps DevSecOps teams fix vulnerabilities before they reach production.

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