Security teams consistently scramble to keep stride with an onslaught of newly discovered vulnerabilities. Patching has long been seen as the default solution, yet a recent Gartner® report, We’re Not Patching Our Way Out of Vulnerability Exposure (G00810627, Saunderson, Lawson, Schneider, 24 February 2025) highlights that, “The unfortunate reality is that Gartner has never seen any client outpatch threat actors.”

According to Gartner, "The cold, hard reality is that no one is outpatching threat actors at scale in any size organization, geography, or industry vertical."

This statement encapsulates a fundamental challenge in cybersecurity today. Organizations pour resources into patching vulnerabilities based solely on Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) ratings. Research from IBM X-Force and Gartner states that, “Vulnerabilities are primarily assessed using common vulnerabilities and exposures/common vulnerability scoring system (CVE/CVSS), resulting in efforts to address only critical and high CVSS scores rather than prioritizing those riskiest to the organization.”

Perhaps even worse, ^{the relentless focus on patching critical CVEs creates a false sense of security} while leaving organizations exposed to actual threats.

‍The Patch Management Fallacy

Several key factors create challenges for current vulnerability management approaches:

• Patch Overload. Stretched resources triage their backlog and focus vulnerability remediation efforts disproportionately on high CVSS scores rather than prioritizing based on actual exploitability.
• Application Vulnerabilities Are Deprioritized. Security teams often defer vulnerabilities at the application layer, even though they represent a significant attack vector. It’s not for a lack of caring, but for a lack of autonomy. Ultimately, responsibility for AppSec lay with the developers, who also care about the security of their software but may have different KPIs which drive their behavior.
• Patching Can Break Critical Systems. Infrastructure and Operations (I&O) teams face immense pressure to patch quickly, but rushed patching can cause service outages, resulting in costly business disruptions. 
• Difficulties Prioritizing. Outage aside, one should not confuse motion with progress. ^{Is the organization focused on patching the right vulnerabilities, the ones which represent the gravest risk to their business?} The answer to that question is rarely found within a generic measure of risk.

Instead of blindly chasing patches, organizations must transition to a modern risk-based approach that considers real-world exploitability, threat intelligence, and compensating controls.

A Smarter Path Forward: Exposure Management

Gartner advises security leaders to shift from traditional vulnerability patching to Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM), which prioritizes vulnerabilities based on an organization’s unique risk context.

"Refocus on cyberthreat vulnerabilities, not just on the assigned criticality, by implementing continuous threat exposure management (CTEM)."

Beyond generic measures of risk, ^{CTEM is about reducing attack surface exposure by evaluating factors such as asset reachability, runtime presence, and active threat campaigns}. This analysis sets organizations up for success by sharpening focus on what is truly exploitable *within their IT context* so that mitigation action can be primed for rapid risk relief. The alternative is the status quo, treading water in a sea of patches while clutching to existing narratives that seek to drown you.

Why Zafran Is the Answer

Zafran Security was designed to meet this new era of vulnerability management. Unlike traditional solutions that rely on generic CVSS scores, Zafran takes a nuanced threat-informed approach, evaluating your IT context and using your existing security tools to assess and mitigate what is most likely to be exploited. The results speak for themselves:

• 90% Reduction in Critical Vulnerabilities: Zafran proves that most vulnerabilities flagged as critical are not actually exploitable, allowing security teams to focus on the 10% that truly matter.
• Immediate Risk Mitigation: Zafran agentlessly analyzes your environment and uses your existing defenses to defuse the most pressing vulnerabilities without waiting on the next patch cycle, buying time for structured remediation without disrupting business operations.
• Unified Visibility Across Hybrid Cloud: Whether on-premises or in the cloud, Zafran consolidates vulnerability signals from across the enterprise into a single view, eliminating data silos and improving response times.

The Time to Act Is Now

Cybersecurity leaders can no longer afford to treat patching as a silver bullet. The attack surface is expanding, threat actors are evolving, and the traditional approach to vulnerability management is failing us all.

Zafran offers a smarter, more efficient way to manage risk. By more accurately assessing risk through enhanced risk context analysis, security teams better triage and prioritize their Gordian backlog. And by leveraging existing security investments, leaders realize better, faster risk reduction that best serves the business mission and reduces operational burden.

Are you ready to take back control? Schedule a demo with Zafran today and start securing what truly matters.

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[1] Gartner, We’re Not Patching Our Way Out of Vulnerability Exposure,  Chris Saunderson, Craig Lawson, et al., 24 February 2025

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