Vulnerability Management Best Practices

Imagine getting the below notification.

“An issue has been detected in the payments cluster. Two of our critical servers are acting abnormally, and a large stream of traffic is being routed to a Russian-based IP address, creating severe latency, widespread instability, and potentially exposing sensitive payment data.” 

Investigation reveals that production systems were compromised through a known vulnerability. 

A fix for this issue had already been released, and the exploit was publicly known. Given the availability of top-tier tools, this incident should have been prevented. In theory, the safeguards in place should have ensured complete protection.

Unfortunately, despite the availability of advanced tools and timely fixes, an absence of a well-defined vulnerability management process can still result in vulnerabilities being exposed. 

This article explains what an effective vulnerability management process looks like: a structured, repeatable set of processes, backed by accountability and data that turns vulnerability detection into action before an incident occurs.

Summary of vulnerability management process best practices

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Maintain a living asset inventory

Despite its importance, maintaining an accurate (or living) asset inventory is one of the most challenging issues in cybersecurity. Modern environments are dynamic, with systems that start up and shut down in minutes, cloud services that appear unexpectedly, and endpoints that constantly move across networks. Assets are constantly added, modified, or removed, and any delay in discovery can create blind spots that weaken the vulnerability management program. 

The problem is that organizations require a current and complete view of assets. It is the only way they can detect vulnerabilities accurately, assign ownership, and make informed risk-based decisions at scale. 

Creating an environment that meets the needs of an organization, while managing the inherent complexity of modern networks, requires three steps. These are described in the subsections below. 

Automate asset discovery

Start by automating your asset discovery. You do this by setting up an effective Configuration Management Database (CMDB) system, and then ensuring all your configuration information is constantly streamed into it. 

The figure below illustrates what this looks like. It shows an automated discovery workflow, with asset information being constantly ingested and analyzed in a closed-loop process. Each step improves inventory accuracy and ensures that what is tracked truly reflects what exists in the organisation’s environment.

Figure 1 – Automated Discovery Workflow (source)

One of the best ways to do this is by integrating a CMDB-specific platform like Device42. Platforms like this have built-in automation and analysis capabilities that will make your CMDB effective, freeing you and your team to focus on other aspects of your vulnerability management.  

Assign consistent metadata to each asset

Once assets are identified, they should be enriched with metadata that provides business, operational, and technical context. Metadata includes details such as:

• Business owner
• Relationship to other assets
• Business criticality
• Data sensitivity
• Exposure level 
• Operational role. 

These details provide a clear understanding of how vulnerabilities impact the organization’s environment and help prioritize remediation efforts. For example, knowing that a system stores sensitive data and has exposure to the Internet significantly changes the vulnerability risk level for that system.

Figure 2 shows what this might look like. Using the platform mentioned above, Device42, an example asset record has been filled with metadata fields. You can see the additional context this metadata provides, including information about location, hardware, serial number and more. 

Figure 2 – Device 42 Asset Record with Metadata Tags (source)

Ultimately, having the correct metadata in an easily accessible location improves your vulnerability management process. It allows each vulnerability to be connected to a system owner, assigned a priority, and directed for resolution based on its business impact.

Set up routine reconciliation with automated reports

Finally, make sure you regularly compare discovered assets to your CMDB. This allows you to catch any discrepancies and identify orphaned systems before they become an issue. 

Do this by integrating regular asset audits across your organization. Choose a regular review cycle, often quarterly, where each team completes a manual review of the assets they are responsible for. If any discrepancies are observed, investigate why they occurred and update your CMDB accordingly. 

Ingest vulnerabilities from multiple sources

In a modern environment, organisations often gather information about the state of existing infrastructure, then compare it with known vulnerabilities from various sources, including

• Infrastructure scanners
• Cloud security tools
• Application testing platforms
• Manual reports. 

Each source uses a different format, severity model, and level of detail. A centralized intake and orchestration layer is key to making this process easier.

When this is in place, organizations receive a unified, prioritized view that turns scattered scan data into correlated insights. Each vulnerability is appropriately linked to an asset, enriched with business context, and ready for triage and resolution, as illustrated in the figure below:

Figure 3 – Vulnerability Data Integration Flow (source)

Unfortunately, this is not the reality for most organizations, nor does it happen automatically. Instead, you need to implement the processes described in the following subsections to get there. 

Standardize the metadata

Start by standardizing the metadata that describes the organization’s assets. Ensure each system has consistent attributes, such as business unit, owner, criticality, and operational role. These tags help link vulnerabilities to the correct systems with the right context. The more consistent the metadata, the easier it is to manage and act on incoming data.

Implement a centralized platform

Once metadata is standardized, send vulnerability data to a centralized platform that can ingest findings from all sources. This system should organize, eliminate duplicates, and assign vulnerabilities to the correct assets. With everything in one place, you can group findings by team, environment, or severity and assign them accordingly. This reduces confusion and speeds up triage.

Prioritize identified vulnerabilities

After data ingestion, apply a uniform scoring model to prioritize identified vulnerabilities. Consider factors like CVSS scores, known exploits, exposure level, and business impact. Use this model to rank findings across tools, making sure everyone uses the same approach. Regularly review and update scoring criteria to ensure they accurately reflect the real risk.

Triage and assign findings to owners

Many organizations struggle with unclear asset ownership and manual assignment workflows. This lack of clarity causes delays, inconsistent actions, and accountability gaps across teams. 

To avoid this, implement the processes described in the following subsections.

Establish a clear ownership model

Start by establishing a clear ownership model. This means ensuring that ownership data is recorded alongside each asset, including name, team, and contact details. Then, use system tagging and metadata to track responsibility by environment, role, or business function. Finally, review and update ownership information regularly to keep it accurate and actionable.

Create a clear risk scoring model

Next, create a process that allows you to assign the right risk score to incoming vulnerabilities. This allows you to focus effort on reducing the highest-risk vulnerabilities first, rather than wasting time on vulnerabilities that may not present a risk to your organization. 

Typically, this is done based on factors such as data sensitivity, system exposure, exploitability, and relevant threat intelligence. However, many businesses apply additional business logic on top of these technical considerations. If this is the case, make sure you add these to your risk scoring model. 

The table below shows you what this might look like. It displays an example prioritization matrix that assigns weighted scores to six key inputs. Each input is rated from low to critical, resulting in a total score that determines the overall risk level.