How to prioritize vulnerabilities based on risk

When it comes to vulnerability management, many security teams opt for a simple strategy that involves tracking the number of vulnerabilities. Counting vulnerabilities produces a straightforward metric that can be monitored and reported, making it easy to compare an organization’s security posture to peers or industry benchmarks. It's also useful for compliance purposes, as some standards require reporting the number of discovered vulnerabilities.

But that’s where the benefits end. Counting vulnerabilities has limitations that make it suboptimal for evaluating cybersecurity risk. For one, it can provide a false sense of security (or urgency). A high number of vulnerabilities doesn’t necessarily mean a high level of risk if those vulnerabilities are difficult to exploit or low severity. Conversely, a low number doesn’t equate to low risk if they are easily exploitable or high severity.

Additional concerns with counting vulnerabilities, such as overlapping vulnerabilities, make it difficult to put an accurate number on the total quantity. And some vulnerabilities may not yet be discovered or reported, preventing a true understanding of the security risks an organization may face.

Application security (AppSec) teams shouldn’t rely solely on counting vulnerabilities to keep their businesses safe. Instead, they must learn to use an approach known as risk-based prioritization, which assesses the actual risk posed by each vulnerability. In this guide, we will explain the benefits of risk-based prioritization and offer directions on how to implement it within your organization. 

Why risk-based prioritization is required for effective vulnerability management 

Risk-based prioritization succeeds where traditional vulnerability counting fails because it focuses on evaluating, ranking, and addressing vulnerabilities based on the risk they pose, rather than on summing all potential threats — some of which may not be immediate or significant. It accounts for factors like exploitability, business impact, and data sensitivity so AppSec teams can direct their limited resources to counter the threats that would cause the most harm. 

Further, the risked-based prioritization method reduces alert fatigue. Monitoring all vulnerabilities tends to inundate security teams with a barrage of alerts, often resulting in ignored or missed important warnings. Risk-based prioritization addresses this problem by allowing security teams to focus their attention on the highest-risk threats.

Yet another benefit of risk-based prioritization is that it drives greater collaboration between teams by creating a shared understanding of risk. When all stakeholders, including AppSec and development teams, have a clear understanding of the potential consequences of vulnerabilities, they can align on how to effectively address the most critical issues.

Key steps for implementing risk-based prioritization 

You can improve your organization’s cybersecurity posture by adopting a risk-based prioritization approach in seven simple steps:

1. Gain comprehensive visibility

2. Incorporate business context

3. Analyze security testing results

4. Evaluate runtime risk signals

5. Develop a risk-scoring model

6. Establish prioritization criteria

7. Continuously refine the approach

1. Gain comprehensive visibility

To locate vulnerabilities, you have to know where they might exist. So, the first step in your journey is to gain a clear picture of your application environment. Do this by listing all the applications your organization uses and then detailing the software components of each application, such as open source libraries, third-party tools, and APIs, to gain further visibility into where vulnerabilities may emerge or hide. Finally, understand how your system's different components interact to better assess the scope of potential risks. 

2. Incorporate business context

While all vulnerabilities are undesirable, they don’t all pose the same level of risk. Prioritizing risk means identifying which applications are most vital to your business operations. The more critical the application to core business functions and revenue generation, the more attention it deserves. Assess the potential downtime, financial loss, or reputational damage in a worst-case scenario. Give priority to vulnerabilities threatening applications that handle sensitive data (e.g., customer financial records and personally identifiable information (PII) and those with broad access to your systems.

3. Analyze security testing results

Now, you’re ready to conduct some application security testing (AST). Leverage AST tools like static application security testing (SAST) and dynamic application security testing (DAST) to gain insights on potential vulnerabilities, then combine results to get a holistic picture of your security posture. Since the priority isn’t to count vulnerabilities, your goal will be to identify those vulnerabilities that are most likely to be exploited and/or cause significant damage to your business. 

4. Evaluate runtime risk signals

You can’t just look at a list of your applications on a spreadsheet to determine risk — you have to run them in real-world environments and check for anomalies or unexpected behaviors. Analyze how frequently different system parts are used and which components are exposed to external threats so you can focus on vulnerabilities with the greatest attack surface. Make a habit of collecting current threat intelligence data around which vulnerabilities attackers are actively exploiting and incorporate the information into your evaluations.  

5. Develop a risk-scoring model

Develop a scoring model to standardize your vulnerability evaluation. Gather all the data you’ve collected related to application visibility, business context, security testing results, and runtime signals, then assign weights to each based on their significance. Next, create a scoring system that assigns a numerical value to each vulnerability based on its risk so you can compare and prioritize them consistently.

6. Establish prioritization criteria

After you’ve scored vulnerabilities, you’ll need to set rules for which vulnerabilities need immediate attention. Do this by defining risk thresholds or boundaries for what constitutes high, medium, and low risk. Make sure to factor in the time and resources available to fix vulnerabilities. Your development team will be writing fixes so provide them with clear guidance on how to prioritize remediation efforts. This includes giving them risk information and context so they can address the most critical issues first.

7. Continuously refine your approach

Risk-based prioritization demands agility and flexibility as threats evolve and your organization’s priorities change over time. Review your risk model quarterly to determine if it’s still providing the desired risk management results. Solicit feedback from team members across departments on what’s working and what should be tweaked, then make adjustments as needed. 

Become a master of ASPM with Snyk and Accenture 

Now that you have a solid understanding of how to use risk-based prioritization for better vulnerability management, take the next step and go deeper on this topic with Snyk and Accenture. Download our white paper, Empower Developers, Reduce Risk: How ASPM Unlocks DevSecOps, for more guidance on how to improve your application security posture. 

Snyk AppRisk elevates application security 

Simplify risk-based prioritization with Snyk AppRisk — a tool that enables AppSec teams to implement, manage, and scale a modern, high-performing developer security program. Book a demo today and learn how Snyk AppRisk can help keep your development program safe from cyber threats.