The Vulnerability Risk Management Landscape, Q2 2023 is now available. Forrester clients can view the report for a deep dive into the benefits of vulnerability risk management (VRM) solutions and the key functionalities to look for when selecting a VRM vendor. The report provides an overview of 36 various vendors to demonstrate the diversity of VRM functionalities and providers.

VRM is an established technology market that continues to experience new market entrants addressing specific vulnerability management requirements. Forrester defines VRM as:

A platform or set of technologies that discovers and assesses assets and their vulnerabilities and exposures, uses the assessment to prioritize remediations, facilitates the risk response to vulnerabilities and exposures, and delivers reporting, dashboarding, and measurements for vulnerability and asset risk.

Security teams are increasingly looking for VRM to provide more context around asset risk and the expanding definition of vulnerability, which now includes exposures, misconfigurations, and weaknesses in security posture. Many vendors now offer VRM features that integrate with their product ecosystem, and we expect more to continue to do so. This VRM expansion is most notable in vendors offering cloud security such as cloud security posture management and endpoint security such as endpoint detection and response. VRM is a core component to attack surface management programs and is a prevalent feature in cyber asset attack surface management (CAASM) vendors. We expect CAASM and VRM products to look more and more similar over the next year.

So what do organizations use VRM for? Our research identified five core VRM use cases:

  1. Remediation prioritization. Prioritize the biggest vulnerability risks to be queued for remediation.
  2. Vulnerabilities and exposures identification. Gain a holistic view of all vulnerabilities and exposures.
  3. Asset risk scoring. Obtain visibility into assets that pose risks to business.
  4. Vulnerability risk reporting and GRC. Generate reports to be used for strategic, operational, and tactical inputs.
  5. Vulnerability risk response. Facilitate and track remediations, mitigations, and exceptions.

To learn more about how VRM functionalities map to the top use cases, additional/extended use cases, and the 36 vendors in this category, check out The Vulnerability Risk Management Landscape, Q2 2023.

Please schedule an inquiry with me if you’d like to understand more about VRM best practices and the VRM vendor landscape.