Top 8 Vulnerability Management Challenges and How to Overcome Them

The State of Application Security report shows that over 2.37 billion attacks were blocked on AppTrana WAAP from April 1, 2024, to June 30, 2024.

Attacks targeting vulnerabilities surged by 1,200% in Q2 2024 compared to last year, an alarming fact.

This sharp rise highlights that vulnerabilities are the prime target.

Moreover, they are now easily exploitable thanks to readily available scripts on known vulnerabilities. This could be because of rapid adoption of AI and LLM models even among hackers. You no longer need to know how to code to exploit a vulnerability.

The same report highlights that 30% of critical and high vulnerabilities are open even after 180+ days after finding them.

Let’s address where organizations are going wrong and top challenges with current vulnerability management practices.

Common Challenges in Vulnerability Management

1. Complex Infrastructure

As organizations expand their digital ecosystems, the complexity of their IT infrastructure grows, encompassing on-premise systems, cloud services, hybrid environments, and diverse devices. This complexity creates numerous interdependencies, making it challenging to detect vulnerabilities across such a broad landscape.

For example, a company might use a combination of legacy ERP systems hosted on-premise, alongside cloud-based customer databases, with remote employees accessing both via mobile devices. A vulnerability in one of the mobile applications could allow unauthorized access to cloud data, but the complexity of the infrastructure may hide this issue, making it difficult to detect with traditional scanning tools.

Consequently, managing vulnerabilities in such complex environments remains a challenging task.

2. Shadow IT and Unmanaged Assets

As technology expands, the attack surface grows, adding more potential entry points for cyber threats and complicating security management. For example, a landing page that was used for a marketing campaign in the past could be outside the inventory of websites and apps that the IT team scans and protects. The ideal course of action would have been to sunset that landing page as soon as the campaign is done.

Simultaneously, shadow IT—unauthorized tools and apps used without official approval—introduces hidden risks and often bypasses standard security measures, leaving organizations vulnerable to breaches and compliance issues.

Attackers know that the easiest path to compromise your assets is through entry points you are unaware of, making these shadow assets prime targets. Mapping External attack surfaces manually is a complex and time-consuming task, often missing shadow, deprecated, and zombie apps thereby increasing risk.

Indusface WAS addresses the challenge of unknown assets and shadow IT with continuous attack surface discovery. The DAST Platform offers full visibility into known and unknown apps and APIs, enabling you to discover assets and scan them for vulnerabilities in a single platform. Consequently, you can efficiently understand and manage your security exposure.

3. Challenges of Patch Management

Effective patch management is one of the key challenges organizations face in vulnerability management today. While it’s essential for maintaining system security, it comes with obstacles such as applying updates without disrupting operations and handling compatibility issues. Irregular and untimely patch management can significantly undermine vulnerability management efforts.

When patches are not applied promptly, systems remain exposed to known vulnerabilities, increasing the risk of exploitation by attackers. The lack of timely updates makes it difficult to prioritize and address the most critical vulnerabilities first, potentially leaving critical weaknesses unaddressed.

As a result, the organization’s overall security is weakened, significantly increasing the likelihood of a successful attack.

Virtual patches provide rapid protection against known vulnerabilities, reducing the window of exposure while awaiting a formal patch. Virtual patching allows organizations to block exploit attempts and protect systems without immediate changes to the application or system.

AppTrana WAAP is a fully managed WAAP platform with SLA backed virtual patching service that guarantees zero false positives. Customers also get a feature called SwyftComply, where the managed services team provides a clean, zero-vulnerability report within 72 hours. This is a detailed blog on how SwyftComply works.

4. Vulnerability Fatigue

In most enterprises, security teams are usually different from application teams. Given that they manage hundreds of applications, security teams are often accused of dumping thousands of open vulnerabilities on the application teams.

The vast number of vulnerabilities can overwhelm application teams. When they start patching, they often notice vulnerabilities in QA systems, sunset systems, etc. Vulnerabilities that needn’t be patched at the same urgency.

As a result, a critical vulnerability on a customer-facing application ends up getting buried and could be exploited by hackers.

Risk-based prioritization is crucial for effective vulnerability management. While CVSS scores provide a measure of technical severity, they do not capture the full picture of risk. To prioritize effectively, vulnerabilities must be assessed according to their real business impact and associated risk.

Indusface WAS Platform’s AcuRisQ helps overcome these hurdles by providing a comprehensive risk-scoring system that considers a range of factors like vulnerability score, discoverability, complexity, required privileges, ethical hacker input, and more—going beyond just CVSS scores.

This enables organizations to focus on vulnerabilities that pose the highest risk to their specific environment, optimizing their response and strengthening overall security.

5. False Positives on Vulnerabilities

False positives on open vulnerabilities also contribute to alert fatigue. Security teams lose credibility when they send vulnerabilities that have a lot of false positives.

Similar to what we discussed in the previous section, application teams are overwhelmed by a barrage of notifications—many of which are false positives—security teams can miss real dangers, making it tough to stay on top of true risks.

Indusface WAS Platform guarantees zero false positives on vulnerabilities through a combination of AI and security-researcher vulnerability vetting processes on each vulnerability reported.

In addition, you also can request a proofs-of-vulnerability where the security research team sends screenshots and supporting proofs.

6. Periodic Instead of Continuous Vulnerability Management

Relying on occasional scans can leave systems exposed to newly discovered vulnerabilities and zero-day threats—vulnerabilities that were unknown in the past. Every month, we find close to 300 zero-day vulnerabilities that affect just the applications that are onboarded onto our platforms, read the zero-day vulnerability reports here.

Regular and continuous scanning is essential to quickly identify and address such vulnerabilities, ensuring timely protection against the latest and most critical security ris

By integrating threat intelligence, organizations receive real-time updates on the latest threats, vulnerabilities, and attack tactics. This ongoing flow of relevant information allows for continuous scanning for emerging threats, ensuring that security measures are always in sync with the current threat landscape. As a result, organizations can enhance their overall protection and reduce the window of exposure to new and evolving threats.

You can also check the recommended frequency of vulnerability scanning here.

7. Resource Constraints

Resource constraints pose a significant challenge in vulnerability management, as organizations often lack the necessary personnel, time, or budget to address all identified vulnerabilities. Limited resources can lead to delays in patching and remediation, leaving critical vulnerabilities unaddressed. This shortage of resources makes it difficult to maintain an effective and timely vulnerability management program, increasing the risk of exploitation and security breaches.

To overcome resource constraints, organizations should eliminate waste by removing false positives and prioritizing vulnerabilities based on risk, focusing on the most critical issues first. Automation can play a key role in streamlining vulnerability detection and remediation, reducing the manual workload on security teams.

8. Cross-Team Collaboration

Ineffective cross-team collaboration can hinder vulnerability management, leading to miscommunication and delays in addressing security issues. When IT, development, and operations teams do not align, critical vulnerabilities may be overlooked, and remediation efforts can become fragmented.

To address this, organizations should implement integrated vulnerability management platforms that provide a centralized view of security issues. Regular cross-functional meetings and clear communication channels are essential for aligning priorities and ensuring coordinated responses. Raising a collaborative culture where teams work together towards common security goals can enhance the overall effectiveness of vulnerability management.

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