4 best practices to beat vulnerability management burnout

Ask any security pro, and you'll hear the same thing: Vulnerability management feels like death by a thousand paper cuts. We have countless issues to address across numerous systems and silos. We're stuck constantly firefighting, unsure if we're truly focusing on what matters most. 

So, what can your team do differently? In our recent conversation, “7 Best Practices for Vulnerability Management in a World of Noise,” Frederico Hakamine, Technical Evangelist at Axonius, and Dustin Patterson, Senior Director of Cyber Security Advisory Services at C1, unpacked what’s really slowing teams down and how to fix it.

Here are four of the best practices they shared to help you drive real progress today. For the full list (plus implementation tips and real-world examples), watch the on-demand webinar.

1. Go beyond technical security scores and prioritize with real context

Technical security scores (like CVSS, CVE, and threat intel) are just the starting point. To know what actually matters in your environment, you need to add business and technical context to every vulnerability. Prioritization that relies solely on technical scores overlooks the unique realities of your business and its assets.

Ask: Is the asset public-facing? Does it store regulated or sensitive data? Is endpoint protection missing or outdated? Is the vulnerability actively exploited? Is the security issue sitting in a honey pot/isolated environment (and do you actually want that for research purposes)?

Think of prioritization as a scoring formula that adds or subtracts weight based on what matters to your business.

For example, raise the priority if:

• The asset is publicly exposed

• EDR coverage is missing

• The OS is out of date

• The vulnerability is being exploited in the wild

Or, lower the priority if:

• The asset isn’t publicly exposed

• It sits behind compensating controls

• It’s a honeypot or decoy 

Another way of thinking about this is: An external security score (alone) is a macro reflection of the risk. It lacks specific information (business, asset context) for prioritization that's constantly asked by your peers (is this in production? Is it in our PCI network? Are we behind on security controls there?)

2. Make remediation a fun game (while driving accountability)

If your fix process depends on Slack reminders and hallway nudges, it’s time to rethink how remediation gets done. It shouldn’t feel like security is nagging the rest of the business. Strong VM programs build accountability into the system, and they even make it fun.

A real-world example: One Axonius customer started comparing patch rates across teams. They even added prizes, making patching a team sport.

Why it worked:

• Made performance trackable and shareable

• Incentivized faster remediation with public recognition and rewards

• Recast security from the “Department of No” to a proactive, engaging partner

How to put this into practice:

• Build a leaderboard that tracks remediation by team or BU

• Run sprints with small prizes or public shoutouts

• Surface progress in Slack or internal dashboards

3. Set Protection-Level Agreements (PLAs), not just SLAs

SLA timelines sound good in theory: patch this in 7 days, fix that in 30. But they don’t reflect complexity, constraints, or real risk tolerance.

That’s where Protection-Level Agreements (PLAs) come in. PLAs align timelines with business realities and available resources.

The difference:

• SLAs say: “You must patch this in 7 days.”

• PLAs say: “We’ve agreed on a 7-day window based on available budget and effort. If an incident happens before that, it’s residual risk. After that? It’s on us.”

This framing makes trade-offs explicit. It shifts the conversation from blame to risk ownership.

Why it works:

• Turns “unacceptable” timelines into negotiated commitments

• Highlights when risk is consciously accepted vs. the result of failure

• Builds transparency and trust between security and business leaders

How to put this into practice:

• For critical vulnerabilities, define timelines based on available resources, not arbitrary deadlines

• Document who accepts the risk and why, especially when full remediation isn’t feasible

• Use these agreements to guide budget conversations and set realistic remediation goals

For more guidance on aligning cybersecurity with your business priorities, check out Cybersecurity Metrics: the Dummies Guide. Learn how the right metrics can help you measure what truly matters (and communicate it clearly).

4. Adopt CTEM (but don’t make it a big bang)

Most vulnerability management programs were built for slower, more predictable environments. Run a scan, patch what you find, and report progress.

That model doesn’t scale anymore. Assets spin up and down constantly, and threats evolve faster than quarterly cycles can track.

That’s why teams are shifting to Continuous Threat and Exposure Management (CTEM).

CTEM is a repeatable loop:

1. Scope the assessment: Define what assets, systems, and environments to evaluate

2. Discover exposures: CVEs, misconfigurations, identity gaps, and more

3. Prioritize based on business impact, exploitability, and other context

4. Validate the findings and verify that fixes address identified risks

5. Mobilize the right teams to take action, then start the cycle again

You don’t need to do a full overhaul right out of the gate. Start small and take it in chunks. Focus on what’s working, where you have visibility, and where you need to improve.

Why CTEM works:

• Brings in more than just CVEs and surfaces real exposures

• Gives you a daily feedback loop, not a quarterly fire drill

• Connects prioritization, automation, and risk ownership

How to put this into practice:

• Map your current exposure lifecycle to find the bottlenecks

• Introduce risk-driven prioritization criteria to your discovery tools

• Validate exposures early to avoid alert fatigue

• Set a goal to reduce cycle time between discovery and action

Want the full 7 best practices?

These four best practices are just the beginning. For even more implementation tips and three additional strategies to strengthen your vulnerability management program, check out the full recording.