What is a vulnerability management plan?
A vulnerability management plan is a structured, ongoing approach that organizations use to identify, assess, and address cybersecurity risks in their IoT devices.
It involves regularly reviewing embedded systems for weaknesses, ranking these vulnerabilities by their potential impact, and mitigating them to enhance overall product security.
Read more: What is vulnerability lifecycle management?
Process
Start by implementing a clear and repeatable process. The vulnerability management plan should run in parallel with your development activities, not after them. This means integrating scanning, assessment, and remediation into your release cycles.
- Define how often you scan your systems. Daily or weekly scans are ideal for critical platforms. Monthly may be enough for less exposed environments.
- Make sure your process includes SBOM generation, CVE detection, prioritization, patching, and reporting.
- Also, document your workflows. This helps onboard new team members and ensures consistency across projects. A well-documented process is also essential for audits and compliance.
Read more: embedded system maintenance process
Team
Next, evaluate your team structure. Do you need a resolute engineer to manage vulnerabilities across all platforms? That depends on your workload, your security standards, and your budget.
If you manage multiple embedded platforms, the effort can quickly become significant. You’ll need someone to check CVEs, validate patches, and coordinate with software engineers. If your team is small or already stretched, consider outsourcing this role. Some service providers, like our partner Witekio, offer dedicated engineers to manage vulnerability monitoring and patching for embedded systems.
The key is to ensure ownership of your critical data. Someone must be responsible for keeping your systems secure, whether it’s an internal role or an external partner.
Vulnerability management tools
Finally, choose the right vulnerability management and remediation tools. Not all CVE management solutions are built for embedded systems.
Look for tools that support:
- SBOM generation in SPDX or CycloneDX
- Accurate CVE detection with minimal false positives
- Manual annotations and collaboration features
- Historical tracking of scans
- Cross-platforms remediation monitoring options
- Clear, actionable reporting dashboards
The right tools won’t just automate your workflow; they’ll make your team more efficient and your systems more secure.
Read more: Comparison of software composition analysis tools.
Could AI help with vulnerability management?
AI is becoming a useful tool for streamlining vulnerability management in embedded systems, improving both efficiency and accuracy. Technologies like ChatGPT and Copilot help automate data analysis and spot trends. What if AI could be an asset in your vulnerability management plan? What if it could help detect, assess and remediate CVEs?
Read more: AI for vulnerability management in embedded systems
Metrics & KPIs
Monitoring the right vulnerability management metrics participates in operational excellence and risk reduction.
Key metrics include:
- Detection & response speed: Measure how quickly you identify vulnerabilities (mean time to detect) and how promptly you address them (mean time to remediate).
- Risk & exploitability: Prioritize issues based on risk-based metrics such as CVE criticality, helping you focus on what matters most.
- Remediation efficiency: Track how long vulnerabilities remain unresolved and evaluate the ratio of automated to manual fixes, these indicators reflect the maturity and effectiveness of your remediation process.
CVE Scan supports your vulnerability management plan
CVE Scan helps R&D teams manage vulnerabilities in their embedded systems, every step of the way.
The tool automates both SBOM generation and CVE scanning by leveraging public vulnerability databases, enabling efficient and thorough detection of security issues.
Collaboration is streamlined, as teams can annotate findings, eliminate false positives, and coordinate remediation efforts seamlessly.
CVEScan also facilitates remediation by identifying and linking applicable patches, while also merging patching tasks across multiple platforms to optimize time and resources.
Finally, comprehensive dashboards provide clear visibility into device security status, delivering actionable insights that enhance efficiency, scalability, and operational excellence in managing vulnerabilities across complex device ecosystems.
