Policy Vulnerability Management Policy

Created by Venkat Pothamsetty, Modified on Sat, 11 Oct at 8:33 AM by Venkat Pothamsetty

Vulnerability Management Policy

Purpose

This policy establishes requirements and guidelines for identifying, assessing, and remediating security vulnerabilities across the organization’s IT and cloud infrastructure. It ensures timely remediation of vulnerabilities based on risk levels and supports the maintenance of a strong security posture.

Scope

This policy applies to all cloud and on-premises resources, including virtual machines, containers, databases, applications, and supporting services within the organization’s environment.

Policy Owner

The Security/DevOps team owns this policy and is responsible for its maintenance and enforcement.

Vulnerability Risk Levels and SLAs

Risk Level	Description	Remediation SLA
Critical	Vulnerabilities that pose immediate risk of system compromise or data breach	30 days
High	Vulnerabilities with significant security impact but no immediate exploit risk	60 days
Medium	Vulnerabilities that could be exploited under specific conditions	90 days
Low	Vulnerabilities with minimal security impact	180 days

Vulnerability Management Process

1. Detection

Regular automated vulnerability scanning across infrastructure and applications
Continuous monitoring of cloud and system logs for anomalies
Review of findings from vulnerability management platforms and tools
Monitoring of security advisories, vendor bulletins, and CVE databases

2. Assessment

Evaluate vulnerability severity and potential impact
Determine risk level and assign corresponding SLA
Consider business impact and remediation complexity
Document findings with assigned risk levels

3. Remediation

Prioritize fixes based on risk level and SLA
Develop and test remediation plans before deployment
Apply security patches, updates, and configuration changes
Validate remediation through follow-up scans and testing

4. Reporting

Track remediation progress against SLAs
Document exceptions and approved compensating controls
Generate regular vulnerability status reports (monthly or as required)
Review recurring issues and trends to improve processes

5. Compliance Monitoring

Perform regular audits of vulnerability management activities
Track adherence to remediation SLAs
Document exceptions, delays, and justifications
Conduct monthly reviews of vulnerability metrics
Perform quarterly assessments of policy effectiveness

Review

This policy will be reviewed annually and updated as necessary to reflect security requirements, emerging threats, and industry best practices.