# Vulnerability Remediation SLAs
Vulnerability Remediation SLAs (Service Level Agreements) define the maximum allowable timeframes for fixing discovered vulnerabilities based on their severity, exploitability, and business impact. These contractual or policy-driven commitments establish accountability for patching timelines, ensuring that critical vulnerabilities receive immediate attention while lower-severity findings follow structured remediation schedules aligned with change management processes.
SLAs exist because vulnerability discovery without remediation is security theater. Every organization with a commercial vulnerability scanner finds thousands of vulnerabilities. The problem is not detection: it is remediation. Without defined timelines, critical vulnerabilities sit in the same backlog as low-severity findings, competing for the same resources and receiving the same lack of urgency. SLAs break that cycle by creating differentiated response requirements that match the actual risk each vulnerability poses.
Effective vulnerability remediation SLAs bridge two organizational realities that often conflict. Security teams need vulnerabilities fixed quickly to reduce attack surface. Operations teams need predictable change windows and sufficient testing time to maintain system stability. SLAs provide the framework for balancing these requirements, establishing timelines that are ambitious enough to meaningfully reduce risk but realistic enough to be achievable given operational constraints.
The best SLA frameworks go beyond simple CVSS scoring to incorporate threat intelligence, asset criticality, and environmental factors. A vulnerability with a CVSS score of 7.5 on an internet-facing web server requires different treatment than the same vulnerability on an isolated development system. SLAs that recognize these distinctions drive better security outcomes than rigid, score-based approaches.
Organizations typically implement tiered SLA structures that map vulnerability severity levels to specific remediation deadlines. A representative framework establishes the following timelines: Critical vulnerabilities (CVSS 9.0+) require remediation within 24-72 hours, High severity vulnerabilities (7.0-8.9) within 30 days, Medium severity (4.0-6.9) within 90 days, and Low severity (0.1-3.9) within 180 days.
Advanced programs refine these base timelines using threat intelligence and environmental factors. The EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) score indicates the probability that a vulnerability will be exploited in the wild within the next 30 days. A vulnerability with a high EPSS score receives expedited treatment regardless of its CVSS rating. Similarly, vulnerabilities listed in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog trigger immediate remediation requirements, often within 24-48 hours, because active exploitation has been confirmed.
Asset exposure significantly impacts SLA timelines. Internet-facing systems receive the most aggressive remediation schedules because they are accessible to external attackers. A medium-severity vulnerability on a public web server might require remediation within 14 days, while the same vulnerability on an internal system follows the standard 90-day timeline. Some organizations create additional categories for air-gapped systems or development environments where slower remediation may be acceptable.
Business impact considerations add another layer of SLA differentiation. Systems supporting revenue-generating processes, containing sensitive customer data, or required for regulatory compliance receive prioritized treatment. A vulnerability affecting a payment processing system demands immediate attention regardless of its technical severity score. These business impact modifiers often override purely technical risk assessments.
Exception processes handle cases where immediate remediation is not feasible. Legacy systems that cannot be patched without extended downtime, applications where vendor patches are delayed, or vulnerabilities requiring coordinated changes across multiple systems may qualify for SLA extensions. These exceptions require documented risk assessments, approval from designated security leadership, and implementation of compensating controls to mitigate risk during the extended remediation window.
Compensating controls bridge the gap between SLA requirements and operational reality. When a critical vulnerability cannot be patched within the defined timeline, organizations might implement network segmentation to isolate the affected system, deploy additional monitoring to detect exploitation attempts, or apply web application firewall rules to block attack vectors. These controls do not eliminate the underlying vulnerability but reduce the likelihood and impact of successful exploitation.
SLA compliance tracking requires integration between vulnerability management platforms and IT service management systems. Modern vulnerability scanners provide APIs that feed scan results into dashboard platforms, enabling real-time tracking of remediation timelines. These dashboards typically show metrics including the number of vulnerabilities approaching SLA deadlines, percentage of findings remediated within target timelines, and average time-to-remediation by severity level.
Escalation procedures activate when SLAs are approaching or have been missed. Initial escalations typically go to system administrators and application owners. Subsequent escalations involve security team leadership, then IT management, and ultimately senior executive leadership for critical vulnerabilities that remain unpatched beyond acceptable timelines. Clear escalation paths ensure that SLA violations receive appropriate attention and resources.
Verification and closure processes confirm that remediation efforts actually eliminated vulnerabilities rather than simply marking them as resolved in ticketing systems. This typically involves re-scanning affected systems to validate that patches were successfully applied and vulnerabilities no longer exist. Some organizations require independent verification for critical vulnerabilities, where security team members confirm remediation rather than accepting closure from the remediation team.
Vulnerability remediation SLAs transform security from a reactive function into a predictable operational discipline. Without defined timelines, vulnerability management becomes an ad-hoc process where critical security issues compete with routine maintenance tasks for attention and resources. SLAs create organizational accountability by establishing clear expectations for remediation timeframes and consequences for missing them.
Resource planning depends on predictable vulnerability management processes. IT teams can allocate patching windows, budget for emergency changes, and staff appropriately when they understand remediation requirements. Security teams can focus their efforts on the highest-priority vulnerabilities while ensuring that lower-severity findings do not accumulate indefinitely. SLAs enable both teams to move from crisis-driven firefighting to systematic risk reduction.
Regulatory compliance increasingly requires documented vulnerability management processes with measurable timelines. PCI DSS mandates that organizations patch critical vulnerabilities within defined timeframes and maintain evidence of compliance. HIPAA requires covered entities to implement procedures for addressing vulnerabilities in covered systems. FedRAMP establishes specific remediation timelines for different vulnerability categories, with high-severity vulnerabilities requiring remediation within 30 days and critical vulnerabilities within 15 days.
The business impact of ineffective vulnerability management extends beyond regulatory penalties. High-profile breaches often exploit vulnerabilities that were discovered but not remediated within reasonable timeframes. The 2017 Equifax breach exploited a vulnerability in Apache Struts that had a published patch available for two months before the attack. The 2019 Capital One breach leveraged a server-side request forgery vulnerability that could have been addressed through proper configuration management.
Measurement and communication benefits make SLAs valuable for security program governance. Executive leadership and board oversight committees need quantifiable metrics to assess security program effectiveness. SLA compliance rates, average time-to-remediation, and trend analysis provide concrete measures of security operational performance. These metrics enable data-driven decisions about security resource allocation and process improvements.
Common misconceptions about vulnerability remediation SLAs include the belief that aggressive timelines always improve security outcomes. Unrealistic SLAs that cannot be consistently achieved undermine organizational confidence in the security program and lead to wholesale exceptions that defeat the purpose of having defined timelines. Effective SLAs balance ambition with achievability, creating stretch goals that improve performance without becoming organizational theater.
CDA establishes vulnerability remediation SLAs during the C-BUILD campaign phase of Theater missions, calibrating timeline requirements to each client's operational reality while maintaining ambitious security objectives. The approach recognizes that cookie-cutter SLA frameworks copied from compliance templates often fail because they ignore the specific constraints and capabilities of the organization implementing them.
SLA development begins with understanding the client's change management processes, maintenance windows, testing requirements, and staff capacity. A financial services organization with 24/7 operations and strict change controls requires different SLA structures than a manufacturing company with planned weekend maintenance windows. CDA maps vulnerability remediation timelines to existing operational rhythms rather than forcing parallel emergency processes that compete with normal business operations.
The Continuous Surface Reduction (CSR) methodology directly influences how CDA approaches vulnerability remediation SLAs. CSR's principle that "every surface you expose is a surface we eliminate" means that SLAs must actually drive surface reduction rather than simply managing vulnerability backlogs. This requires SLA structures that prioritize vulnerabilities based on their contribution to exploitable attack surface rather than purely technical severity scores.
CDA's SLA frameworks integrate threat intelligence more aggressively than traditional approaches. EPSS scores, KEV catalog presence, and CDA's own threat intelligence feed into dynamic SLA adjustments that reflect current threat conditions. A vulnerability that was considered low-priority under standard CVSS scoring might receive critical-level treatment if threat intelligence indicates active exploitation campaigns or if it appears in attack chains observed in CDA's Theater operations.
Risk-based prioritization within CDA's SLA frameworks considers the specific threat actors and attack scenarios most relevant to each client. A defense contractor faces different threats than a healthcare provider, and their vulnerability remediation priorities should reflect those differences. CDA develops client-specific threat models that influence SLA timelines, ensuring that remediation efforts focus on vulnerabilities most likely to be exploited by relevant adversaries.
Arena scoring integration makes vulnerability remediation SLA compliance a measurable component of overall security program effectiveness. The Arena methodology tracks SLA adherence as a leading indicator of security operational maturity, with consistent SLA compliance correlating with reduced incident frequency and impact. This measurement approach helps clients understand the business value of disciplined vulnerability management processes.
CDA's approach differs from conventional vulnerability management consulting by focusing on remediation engineering rather than just policy development. While traditional approaches emphasize SLA documentation and governance structures, CDA helps organizations build the operational capabilities needed to consistently meet aggressive remediation timelines. This includes automation tooling, process integration, and organizational change management to support sustainable vulnerability remediation at scale.
• Vulnerability remediation SLAs must balance aggressive timelines with operational reality to be sustainable and effective, accounting for change management processes, testing requirements, and organizational capacity.
• Advanced SLA frameworks go beyond CVSS scoring to incorporate threat intelligence (EPSS scores, KEV catalog), asset exposure (internet-facing vs. internal), and business impact to prioritize remediation efforts more effectively.
• Exception processes with documented risk acceptance and compensating controls are essential for handling cases where immediate remediation is not feasible due to system dependencies or business constraints.
• SLA compliance tracking requires integration between vulnerability management platforms and IT service management systems to provide real-time visibility into remediation timelines and escalation triggers.
• Regulatory frameworks including PCI DSS, HIPAA, and FedRAMP increasingly require documented vulnerability remediation timelines with measurable compliance evidence, making SLAs a compliance necessity rather than just a security best practice.
• Continuous Surface Reduction (CSR): Every Surface Eliminated • EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) Implementation • Vulnerability Management Program Design • IT Asset Management for Security • Risk-Based Vulnerability Assessment
• NIST SP 800-40 Rev. 4: Guide to Enterprise Patch Management Planning • CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog Documentation • PCI Security Standards Council: Information Supplement on Vulnerability Management • SANS Institute: Vulnerability Management Maturity Model • MITRE CVE Program Documentation