How to Prioritize Vulnerabilities When Overwhelmed by Thousands of Findings

Key Points
Need for Vulnerability Prioritization: Explains why thousands of continuously discovered vulnerabilities can overwhelm teams and why a structured prioritization model is essential in Vulnerability Manager Plus.
What is Risk based vulnerability prioritization: Defines how Vulnerability Manager Plus uses severity, exploit status, vulnerability age, patch availability, zero day status and CVSS scores to rank vulnerabilities so you can focus on what matters first.
Quick setup: Provides a step by step walkthrough in the Vulnerability Manager Plus console to view, filter and triage vulnerabilities using built in risk parameters, matrices and specialized views so you can work through large volumes efficiently.

Introduction

When your environment is scanned continuously, it is normal for Vulnerability Manager Plus to report thousands of open issues at any given time. The challenge is not finding vulnerabilities but deciding which ones to fix first. Without a clear prioritization approach, critical weaknesses can be buried among lower risk items, slowing down remediation and exposing your organization to unnecessary risk. Vulnerability Manager Plus provides built in ways to organize and rank these findings so you can move from noise to action.

What is Risk based vulnerability prioritization in Vulnerability Manager Plus?

Risk based vulnerability prioritization in Vulnerability Manager Plus is the process of ranking vulnerabilities using multiple security signals so that the most dangerous issues are addressed first. The product continuously scans operating systems and third party applications across all managed computers and then evaluates each vulnerability using several parameters.

Vulnerability Manager Plus helps you assess risk using:

• Severity levels: Vulnerabilities are classified from low to critical based on impact and ease of exploitation, with critical issues capable of leading to severe compromise and therefore needing immediate attention.
• Exploit status: The platform indicates whether exploit code is available, and vulnerabilities with published exploit code and high severity should be prioritized at the top of your queue.
• Vulnerability age: You can consider how long a vulnerability has existed, either from published date or from when it was first discovered in your network, so that long standing issues are highlighted as indicators of weak security hygiene.
• Patch availability: Vulnerabilities that already have a patch available can be prioritized for quick wins by deploying the relevant updates.
• Zero day vulnerabilities: Issues identified as zero day are given special focus so they can be addressed ahead of other items.
• CVSS scores: CVSS values provide a numerical measure of severity, with higher scores reflecting greater urgency and lower scores indicating less immediate risk.

Together, these parameters allow Vulnerability Manager Plus to support a structured triage process instead of leaving you with a flat list of thousands of vulnerabilities.

Quick Setup

Use this Quick Setup to start prioritizing large volumes of vulnerabilities directly within the Vulnerability Manager Plus console using the built in views and filters.

Step 1: Open the Software Vulnerabilities view

1. Sign in to the Vulnerability Manager Plus console.
2. Go to Threats and select Software Vulnerabilities.
3. Review the list of vulnerabilities detected across your managed computers; by default, all discovered vulnerabilities are shown in this view.

This gives you a continuously updated inventory that you will refine in the next steps.

Step 2: Filter vulnerabilities by key risk parameters

1. In the Software Vulnerabilities view, select Filters.
2. Use the available options to filter vulnerabilities based on:
   • Severity level
   • Exploit status
   • Patch availability
   • CVSS scores
3. Apply the filters to narrow down the list to the highest risk vulnerabilities first.
4. From the filtered list, select the entries that you want to handle first and proceed with remediation using the built in actions.

For detailed behavior of these parameters while filtering and prioritizing, you can refer to the Vulnerability Assessment and Prioritization guide.

Step 3: Search and prioritize by CVE ID

• In Threats → Software Vulnerabilities, locate the Search by CVE ID field.
• Enter the CVE IDs for specific vulnerabilities that you need to address, such as those in a regulatory bulletin or an internal security advisory.
• From the resulting list, select the matching vulnerabilities and move forward with remediation actions from the same view.

This step helps you quickly surface and handle high profile or specifically mandated CVEs within a large dataset.

Step 4: Use the Vulnerability Age Matrix for time based prioritization

1. In the console, go to Dashboard → Home → Vulnerability Age Matrix.
2. View how vulnerabilities are grouped by both severity and age.
3. Choose whether the matrix should calculate age from the published date or from the discovered date, depending on your policy.
4. Click on the cell that corresponds to the age range and severity level you want to target, for example older critical vulnerabilities.
5. In the resulting list, select the vulnerabilities that fall into that category and continue with remediation.

This allows you to systematically tackle older, more dangerous issues before moving on to more recent or lower risk findings.

Step 5: Focus on zero day vulnerabilities

1. Navigate to Threats → Zero day Vulnerabilities in the Vulnerability Manager Plus console.
2. Review the dedicated list of zero day issues that require immediate attention.
3. Select these vulnerabilities and initiate remediation according to the guidance available for each one.

Using this specialized view ensures that zero day threats are always treated with the highest priority, even when thousands of other vulnerabilities are present.

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