A Practical Guide for Security Decision Makers
Security tools have come a long way in identifying threats but visibility alone doesn’t reduce risk. Exposure management platforms promise to bridge the gap between detection and action, helping organizations move from insight to impact. But not all platforms are created equal.
Use this guide to evaluate whether a solution truly closes the loop from visibility and validation to remediation before making an investment.
CTEM Stage 1: Visibility
1. Can the platform integrate across your full stack on-prem and cloud?
The flexibility of being able to deploy an agent or go with agentless discovery is critical for hybrid environments where endpoints, servers, and cloud services constantly change. Look for platforms with high flexibility with native integrations via APIs, eliminating friction and ensuring broad, immediate coverage.
Vicarius supports agentless scanning, as well as optional agent-based deployments, enabling coverage across traditional and modern environments.
2. Does it consolidate security findings into a single source of truth?
Disconnected tools create fragmented visibility. Your platform should normalize, deduplicate, and unify telemetry from VA scanners, EDR, CNAPP, firewalls, SIEM, and more so you can manage your true exposure landscape from one place.
Vicarius’s consolidated scan results and unified dashboard help reduce alert fatigue and streamline prioritization.
CTEM Stage 2: Assessment
3. Does it validate the effectiveness of your existing security controls?
It’s not just about what’s vulnerable it’s about what’s actually exposed. Choose a platform that cross-references configurations, control coverage, and detection gaps to identify where security posture fails in practice.
Vicarius aligns exposure findings with misconfigurations and gaps, strengthening exposure management by tying vulnerabilities to real-world risk.
4. Can it correlate exposures with active threat behavior?
Beyond CVEs, platforms should map findings to MITRE ATT&CK tactics and threat actor activity. Can it tell you which security tool failed and whether the exposure is being exploited?
Vicarius integrates exploit intelligence and vulnerability context to surface exposures that matter most.
CTEM Stage 3: Prioritization
5. Does it incorporate threat intel and exploitability into risk scoring?
EPSS scores, exploit availability, affected asset count, known attacker activity and environment context all matter. A modern platform should factor these into a dynamic risk score not just rely on static CVSS.
Vicarius includes exploit prediction, environemnt and asset context in its prioritization engine.
6. Can it deduplicate findings across tools and normalize formats?
If Tenable and your CNAPP both flag the same flaw, will the platform merge it into one action? That’s key to avoiding duplicated efforts.
Vicarius deduplicates findings and presents a unified view across third-party and native scan data.
7. Does it factor in business context and potential impact of action?
Security shouldn’t slow business. Prioritization should reflect asset criticality, operational dependencies, and compliance needs.
Vicarius enables prioritization based on risk context and the potential business impact of fixes.
CTEM Stage 4: Remediation (Mobilization)
8. Can it take remediation action or just recommend it?
Remediation recommendations are helpful but real value comes from acting. Look for platforms that support automated patching, scripting, or integration with ITSM/SOAR tools.
Vicarius automates OS and third-party app patching across Windows, Linux, and macOS, helping close the loop.
9. Can it validate remediation actions safely before deployment?
Security shouldn’t break things. Choose a platform that lets you preview impact, test fixes in sandboxed environments, or limit changes to maintenance windows.
Vicarius supports staged rollouts and integration with ITSM for approval workflows.
10. Does it support compensating controls when patching isn’t possible?
Not everything can be patched. Look for the ability to enforce policies, segment vulnerable assets, or apply virtual patches.
Vicarius offers vShield, a virtual patching engine that mitigates risk when traditional patching isn’t an option.
Real-World Lessons: Why Active Remediation with Vicarius Matters
Organizations that rely solely on visibility and prioritization often fall short on effective exposure management and real risk reduction.Vicarius changes that by combining discovery, validation, and automated remediation into a single platform. Consider:
Financial Services: A major firm discovered misconfigured IPS rules that left critical vulnerabilities exposed despite being detected. With Vicarius, over 400 vulnerabilities were automatically remediated using existing controls via policy-driven workflows, eliminating manual effort and reducing dwell time.
Healthcare: Endpoint tools failed to flag key OS misconfigurations that enabled credential theft during a red team exercise. Vicarius applied automated remediation policies using vPatch and vScript, fixing the issue before it could be exploited again.
Manufacturing: Siloed tools created protection gaps across facilities. Vicarius centralized visibility and control, enforcing protections like Patchless Protection (vShield) and consistent compliance checks (vComply) across all endpoints closing gaps and stopping lateral movement.
With Vicarius, remediation isn’t an afterthought. It’s the foundation.
These examples show that exposure management must move beyond dashboards. Without real action whether patching, segmentation, or config enforcement risk remains.
Final Consideration
Before you buy another platform that shows you where you’re weak, ask if it can actually make you stronger. Exposure management should eliminate the time between detection and protection. The right exposure management platform helps you do just that, delivering measurable reductions in Mean Time to Remediate (MTTR), incident frequency, and audit findings.
