Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (RBVM) in a Cloud-Native World

Nir Dagan, DevSecOps Engineer

April 8, 2024

5 min read

The cloud provides businesses and users with many advantages, including agility, scalability, connectivity, advanced services and an improved ability to secure business and personal assets. However, these advantages can also introduce challenges related to the protection of organizational IT infrastructure. Fast deployment of applications at cloud speed means an ever-changing environment where workloads appear and disappear in a matter of minutes. Cloud services provide great business functionality but also increase the organizational attack surface, and improved connectivity enables attackers to connect to systems that were once much harder to reach. This is especially true when considering vulnerability remediation and management.

Primary Aspects of Cloud-Based Vulnerability Management

When addressing vulnerability management in the cloud, as opposed to confronting this challenge in on-prem infrastructure, security professionals should consider two main elements:

The connectivity of systems in the cloud requires us to reassess the risk that a vulnerable system possesses. Seamless connectivity and integration, clear benefits of cloud infrastructure, also mean that when a system is exploited the impact may extend beyond what the system does or the type of data it holds, as there are new ways to reach other cloud resources from an exploited workload. Lateral movement can indeed happen in on-premise systems as well, but the cloud introduces an entirely new set of techniques making the exploit much easier for malicious actors.
Resources can appear and disappear in a matter of minutes in the cloud, changing the way asset inventory processes are conducted. The cloud indeed offers advantages since asset inventory can now be achieved using the CSP APIs, whereas on-premise shadow IT is a complex problem. However, the velocity at which resources change in the cloud requires organizations to adapt. For vulnerability management, this means that vulnerabilities may not be identified or addressed.

Critical Functions of RBVM Cloud Security Platforms

Considering these differences, security teams must ensure that their cloud RBVM security platform is capable of executing the following functions:

Assessing all IT assets across the organization including ever-changing cloud infrastructure. In the cloud, assets should be continuously scanned by querying the cloud for any configuration change. Assets in the cloud also include the IaC code, and a strong RBVM platform should be able to assess and assign risk to this type of infrastructure. ‍
Assigning risk to vulnerabilities while considering not only the CVSS score but the actual likelihood of exploitation. This entails integrating additional data sources such as EPSS and threat intelligence.‍
Providing information on the effective privileges a system or service holds. The RBVM platform should use this information and change the impact score on that system. For example, a workload on cloud infrastructure might have an identity and associated privileges that grant it access to different cloud resources. The impact of exploitation on this type of workload is different from the impact on a similar workload without the associated identity, and the platform should provide this information and adjust accordingly.‍
Pointing to the vulnerability source and not just to the instance where the vulnerability was found. In the cloud-native world, the source of a vulnerability is not the workload itself but the code that created it. Workloads are created and destroyed with different deployment tools that take configuration code to create these types of resources. ‍
Providing automation and processes for a growing amount of vulnerabilities. Technologies such as containers enable consistent and scalable deployment of software in different environments. Each container has a base operating system, which provides a consistent environment for the software to run on. However, this also means that hundreds of containers - all with base operating systems and large amounts of vulnerabilities - can run on a single server. Add to that cloud configuration issues, and it quickly becomes apparent that the number of vulnerabilities increases by an order of magnitude. ‍
Prioritizing vulnerability remediation with context. A cloud RBVM platform should consider more than just the assigned severity when prioritizing the vulnerability for remediation. The platform should map the IT infrastructure to the organizational structure and business context for a comprehensive assessment. ‍
Consolidating vulnerability alerts according to shared attributes. This is especially important when different security detection products point to the same vulnerability. A cloud RBVM system should be able to identify such duplications and group them into a single ticket. ‍
Processing all vulnerabilities on the cloud and on-premise. The platform should gather data from any system that identifies vulnerabilities across the different pipelines and should be able to provide a consolidated view of all the vulnerabilities, even those that are identified by other security products.

Cloud innovation must come hand in hand with next-generation, agile security solutions that can easily adapt to the changing environment. With broader attack surfaces and the sheer number of vulnerabilities discovered in cloud environments, RBVM platforms are a necessity for forward-thinking organizations. By leveraging automation and cloud-native technology, these platforms can effectively manage these challenges without compromising business objectives.

See the Opus Platform in Action

Cybersecurity Consolidation: The Key to Stronger Security

February 13, 2025

SSVC Explained: How It Transforms Vulnerability Prioritization

February 5, 2025

How to Achieve and Maintain FedRAMP Compliance

February 2, 2025

Cloud-to-Code Integration: Enhancing Security from Cloud to Codebase

January 25, 2025

Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM): A Comprehensive Guide

January 14, 2025

Remediation as Security Immunization: Protecting Against Exploits, Malware, and Ransomware

January 25, 2025

Security Remediation Insights - Looking Back at 2024, Ahead to 2025

January 15, 2025

No-Code Automation in 2025: Choosing and Implementing Tools

January 14, 2025

Build vs. Buy: A Guide for Security Remediation Platforms

January 14, 2025

How To Design an Effective Vulnerability Management Program

January 14, 2025

Exposure Assessment Platforms (EAPs): A Cybersecurity Essential

November 20, 2024

NYDFS Cybersecurity Regulation: Key Compliance Steps

January 14, 2025

Is Python the Right Tool for Your Cyber Security Strategy?

January 14, 2025

What Is DORA Compliance? A Practical Guide

January 14, 2025

Opus' Ownership Detection & No-Code Workflow Builder

November 5, 2024

Remediation vs. Mitigation: Key Differences Explained

November 7, 2024

What Is Vulnerability Remediation & How It Works

January 14, 2025

Vulnerability Assessment: Definitions, Methodology & Tools

November 7, 2024

Wrapping Up Season One of "30 Min on: Vulnerability Management"

October 21, 2024

CVE and CVSS: Vulnerability Assessment & Severity Ratings

October 29, 2024

CVSS Scores: How They Enhance Vulnerability Assessment

February 12, 2025

What CVE Scores Mean for Your Cybersecurity Strategy

October 29, 2024

The 2025 Guide to Risk-Based Vulnerability Management

January 12, 2025

Secure SDLC: Why and How to Integrate Security In Your Development Life Cycle

October 20, 2024

Application Security Posture Management (ASPM): How It Works & Top Tools in 2025

January 12, 2025

How to Prioritize Vulnerabilities Effectively in 2025

January 12, 2025

The Opus Multi-Layer Prioritization Engine: What is it All About?

September 10, 2024

EPSS Score: Improving Vulnerability Prioritization in 2025

January 12, 2025

Opus Platform Explained: Cloud-Native Vulnerability Remediation

October 20, 2024

It’s Time to Get Proactive About Vulnerability Remediation

October 29, 2024

The Vulnerability Strikes Back - TABLETOP PART TWO

August 13, 2024

Opus Security Joins CrowdStrike Marketplace

September 29, 2024

Cloud-to-Code Integration for Comprehensive Remediation

January 15, 2025

Understanding CTEM: How Opus Security Can Help

September 22, 2024

This Is What Your Security Champions Program Is Missing

September 29, 2024

Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (RBVM) in a Cloud-Native World

October 7, 2024

How Business Impact Analysis Facilitates Effective Remediation

October 20, 2024

[Case Study] How Opus Solved the Puzzle of Disparate Tools and Alerts

October 7, 2024

It’s Time for Security Operations to Ditch Excel

February 13, 2025

Security Remediation Budgeting - Everything You Need to Know

October 20, 2024

How to Achieve More Effective Vulnerability Management?

August 13, 2024

Checklist: Tracking Down Key Stakeholders for Effective Security Remediation

October 2, 2024

Streamlining Security Remediation: The Convergence of CTEM and ASPM into a Single Operating Platform

September 22, 2024

How to Locate Key Stakeholders for Security Remediation

October 7, 2024

The Evolution of Vulnerability Remediation: From RBVM to Security Remediation Platforms

September 29, 2024

Practical Vulnerability Remediation - When Should You Act?

October 20, 2024

The Ultimate Remediation Lifecycle for Vulnerability Management

September 22, 2024

Global Leader in Content Solutions Streamlines Remediation with Opus

August 13, 2024

Opus Security helps Global Technology Company Connect Security Tools for More Effective Security Remediaiton

August 13, 2024

Opus Security's VP of Marketing shares her thoughts on B2B marketing in a recent DemandBase podcast.

August 13, 2024

Opus Security Wins 2023 CyberSecurity Breakthrough Award

October 20, 2024

Vulnerability Management - A Story

September 22, 2024

6 Ways Orchestration Reduces Cloud Security Risk

October 2, 2024

Move Beyond Shift Left and Shift Smart

October 20, 2024

3 Tips for Bridging the Remediation Developer/Security Gap

October 2, 2024

WAF With EKS, Using Only k8s Controllers

August 13, 2024

Opus Recognized in the 2023 Gartner® Emerging Tech: Security — The Future of Cyber Is Automated Moving Target Defense report.

August 13, 2024

Wiz identifies, Opus fixes.

August 13, 2024

Writing your Cloud Opus: A Deep Dive into Orchestrating your Cloud Security

August 13, 2024

Snow in April, Alert Monsters, and Connect Four: 5 Takeaways from our SecOps Chat

August 13, 2024

Security in Sync: How Security Teams Can Make Cloud Remediation Less Painful for Engineers

October 20, 2024

Why We Need a New Approach to Remediation in the Cloud

August 13, 2024

Introducing Opus: Orchestrating Remediation and Reducing Risk in the Cloud

September 29, 2024

Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (RBVM) in a Cloud-Native World

Read next

See the Opus Platform in Action