How to Build a Modern Vulnerability Management Program (2025 Guide)

Executive Summary

Modern cybersecurity environments have outgrown traditional vulnerability management (VM). The old model of periodic scanning, severity-based prioritization, and manual remediation workflows cannot keep pace with cloud adoption, identity complexity, DevOps velocity, and rapidly evolving threats.

To succeed in 2025, organizations must build a modern vulnerability management program that is:

• Risk-first, not scan-first
• Continuous instead of periodic
• Exposure-aware, not vulnerability-centric
• Automated and orchestrated end-to-end
• Aligned with business impact and operational workflows
• Powered by unified data, explainable scoring, and cross-team collaboration

This guide walks through the essential components of a next-generation VM program and shows how Brinqa enables organizations to operationalize VM as part of a broader, proactive cyber risk strategy.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Why Traditional VM Programs Fail
3. Core Principles of a Modern VM Program
4. Step-by-Step: How to Build a Modern Vulnerability Management Program
5. How Brinqa Operationalizes Modern VM
6. Maturity Stages of a VM Program
7. How VM Fits Into CTEM and ROC Models
8. Common Challenges and Solutions
9. KPIs for Measuring VM Success
10. Conclusion
11. FAQs
12. Metadata & Schema

1. Introduction

Cyber attackers no longer rely solely on exploiting classic software vulnerabilities. Today’s breaches frequently stem from:

• Misconfigured cloud resources
• Excessive identity permissions
• Exposed services
• Application dependencies
• Shadow IT
• Unmonitored external assets

A modern vulnerability management program must expand beyond vulnerability scanning to include full exposure visibility, contextual risk scoring, automated remediation, and continuous improvement.

This is where the modern VM program aligns tightly with Brinqa’s exposure management platform capabilities.

2. Why Traditional Vulnerability Management Programs Fail

Legacy VM programs often break down because they rely on:

A. Siloed tools

Scanner outputs aren’t connected to identities, cloud configs, business context, or threats.

B. CVSS-only prioritization

Severity ≠ risk. Business impact and likelihood are missing.

C. Manual workflows

IT teams receive thousands of unprioritized tickets with no context.

D. Limited visibility

Cloud workloads spin up and down faster than scan cycles.

E. Poor communication

Security sees vulnerabilities; executives want to understand risk.

These gaps lead to:

• Persistent backlogs
• High MTTR
• Missed high-risk exposures
• Duplicate or misassigned tickets
• Frustration across Security and IT teams

A modern program eliminates these issues through unification, context, automation, and clear ownership — which is exactly the ROC model Brinqa supports.

3. Core Principles of a Modern Vulnerability Management Program

1. Unified Visibility Across All Attack Surface Domains

A modern VM program must integrate vulnerabilities with:

• Cloud misconfigurations
• Identity and privilege risk
• External attack surface exposure
• Software and application dependencies
• Threat intelligence
• Asset and business context

This creates a complete understanding of exposure.

2. Risk-Based Prioritization with Explainable Scoring

Risk scoring must answer:

“Why does this issue matter, and what is its real business impact?”

Brinqa’s explainable scoring includes:

• Exploit intelligence
• Identity access and privilege context
• Asset criticality
• Internet exposure
• Control strength
• Attack path relationships

3. End-to-End Automation and Orchestration

Automation is critical for:

• Ticket creation and routing
• Cloud remediation and configuration fixes
• Identity cleanup workflows
• SLA tracking
• Verification and closure

4. Shared Ownership Across Teams

Modern VM is not just a Security function. It must integrate with:

• IT operations
• AppSec and development teams
• Cloud and DevOps
• Identity teams
• Governance and risk

Brinqa’s ROC model unifies these stakeholders.

5. Continuous Exposure Management (CTEM)

Periodic scanning is dead. Organizations must continuously:

• Evaluate exposure
• Validate risk
• Mobilize remediation
• Track reduction

4. How to Build a Modern Vulnerability Management Program

This section provides a full framework aligned with Brinqa’s capabilities.

Step 1: Build a Unified Cyber Asset Inventory

Inventory must include:

• Cloud resources (compute, storage, K8s, serverless)
• Servers and endpoints
• Applications and APIs
• SaaS systems
• Identities and privileges
• Network assets
• External attack surface

Brinqa’s Cyber Risk Graph unifies all this data automatically, creating a single, complete system of record.

Step 2: Define VM Scope, SLAs, and Governance Models

A mature VM program must answer:

• Which assets require scanning?
• Who owns remediation?
• What SLAs apply to high-risk issues?
• How will exceptions be managed?
• How will risk be reported to leadership?

Governance prevents drift and ambiguity across teams.

Step 3: Consolidate Vulnerability Findings from Every Source

Data should flow from:

• Infrastructure scanners
• Cloud posture/security tools
• AppSec scanners (SAST, DAST, SCA)
• Container scanning tools
• Identity systems
• External attack surface scanners

Brinqa normalizes and deduplicates this data into one risk model.

Step 4: Apply Risk-Based Prioritization (Not Severity-Based)

This is the heart of modern VM. Risk-based prioritization considers:

Technical Factors

• Active exploitation
• Proof-of-concept availability
• Vulnerability chaining potential

Environmental Factors

• Internet exposure
• Cloud configuration state
• Identity and privilege relationships
• Application context

Business Factors

• Asset value
• Operational impact
• Regulatory exposure

Brinqa provides explainable, contextual scoring that Security, IT, and executives can all understand.

Step 5: Operationalize Remediation with Automation & Workflows

Remediation should never be a manual, ticket-by-ticket process.

Brinqa supports:

• Auto-ticket creation in ServiceNow, Jira, etc.
• Auto-owner assignment based on CMDB or identity data
• Automated cloud fixes (configs, policies, tags)
• Identity remediation workflows
• Patch orchestration inputs
• SLA tracking dashboards

This reduces MTTR dramatically.

Step 6: Validate, Report, and Communicate Risk Status

Verification activities include:

• Automated rescans
• Risk score updates
• SLA compliance tracking
• Executive-level reporting

Brinqa provides dashboards for:

• Risk reduction trends
• Exposure metrics
• High-risk assets
• Program maturity
• ROC operational insights

Step 7: Embed VM into CTEM and ROC Operations

A modern VM program is not a silo — it is a foundational component of a broader Risk Operations Center (ROC).

Through Brinqa, organizations extend VM into:

• Continuous threat exposure management
• Business impact analysis
• Operationalized remediation across IT & DevOps
• Cross-functional risk governance
• Continuous improvement cycles

This converts VM from a technical function into a business-enabling capability.

5. How Brinqa Operationalizes Modern Vulnerability Management

Brinqa is built to address the exact gaps that legacy VM tools leave behind.

Unified Cyber Risk Graph

Brinqa ingests and correlates:

• Vulnerabilities
• Identities
• Misconfigurations
• Cloud issues
• Threat intel
• Business context

This eliminates data silos entirely.

Explainable Risk Scoring

Brinqa shows why an issue is high risk — not just that it is. This includes:

• Attack path relevance
• Identity privilege impact
• Business-critical systems
• Real exploitation likelihood

Automated Remediation

Brinqa orchestrates:

• Tickets
• Cloud config fixes
• Identity cleanup
• Patch workflows
• SLA enforcement
• Reporting

ROC Enablement

Brinqa enables organizations to implement a Risk Operations Center, transforming VM into a continuous, business-aligned operational capability.

Support for CTEM

Brinqa operationalizes all five CTEM phases:

• Scoping
• Discovery
• Prioritization
• Validation
• Mobilization

6. Maturity Stages of a Modern VM Program

Stage 1 — Reactive & Scanner-Centric

• Tool silos
• Manual prioritization
• No cloud/identity context
• High backlog

Stage 2 — Centralized Visibility

• Aggregated findings
• Initial prioritization
• Basic workflows

Stage 3 — Risk-Based Program

• Contextual scoring
• SLA-driven remediation
• Better reporting

Stage 4 — Automated & Orchestrated

• Workflow automation
• Continuous validation
• Cloud & identity remediation

Stage 5 — ROC-Enabled Program

• Business alignment
• CTEM integration
• Continuous improvement
• Organization-wide accountability

Brinqa accelerates teams through all stages.

7. How VM Fits into CTEM and ROC Models

Modern organizations increasingly adopt:

CTEM (Continuous Threat Exposure Management)

A continuous cycle that integrates VM with exposure intelligence, validation, and mobilization.

ROC (Risk Operations Center)

A centralized operational function that manages risk reduction across teams and technologies.

Brinqa is uniquely positioned to support both, making VM a foundational pillar of enterprise risk operations.

8. Common Challenges and How to Solve Them

Challenge 1: Too many findings and too little time

Solution: Contextual risk scoring.

Challenge 2: Lack of visibility across cloud and identity

Solution: Unified Cyber Risk Graph.

Challenge 3: Slow, manual remediation

Solution: Workflow orchestration + automation.

Challenge 4: No alignment with business risk

Solution: Explainable, business-aligned scoring.

Challenge 5: Fragmented accountability

Solution: ROC operating model (Brinqa).

9. KPIs for Measuring VM Success

• Mean time to remediation (MTTR)
• SLA compliance rate
• Reduction in high-risk exposures
• Attack path elimination rate
• Vulnerability recurrence
• Cloud/identity misconfiguration MTTR
• Ticket aging and backlog metrics
• Executive-level risk reduction reporting

Brinqa provides these dashboards out of the box.

10. Conclusion

Building a modern vulnerability management program means going beyond scanning and patching. It requires unified visibility, contextual intelligence, risk-based prioritization, automation, orchestration, continuous improvement, and business alignment.

Brinqa enables organizations to transform VM into a scalable, proactive, risk-driven capability that reduces exposure and supports enterprise resilience.

Get ahead of what comes next

The future of vulnerability management already belongs to teams that combine AI with a connected exposure model. If you want to see how the leaders in this space are evaluated, explore the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Exposure Assessment Platforms.

Access the Gartner Magic Quadrant here.

FAQs