In this post, I will talk about the death of “Patch Everything”.
In 2026, “zero vulnerability backlog” is mathematically impossible. It’s also unwise.
The theme in cybersecurity today is simplification, unification, and power. And most importantly, aligning with business objectives.
To keep up, teams need to exit the “cybersecurity vacuum” in which all things revolve around security-only metrics (CVSS scores, how many on the backlog). Instead, they must adopt an approach that looks at what matters in the broader context of the business.
Even if that means leaving some “high value” CVEs behind.
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Security Cannot Survive on VM Alone
Traditionally, vulnerability management programs discover and rate CVEs based on an objective, external severity score. The days when that was enough are gone.
Vulnerability fatigue is one indicator that “clearing the backlog” is no longer working—or workable. Hundreds and even thousands of vulnerabilities can be discovered in a single scan, and companies are doing these scans quarterly.
Even if resources-strapped teams could get to them all, they’d be wasting their time and doing nothing else. Meanwhile, sophisticated attackers are looking for more than just vulns; they’re searching for weak passwords, misconfigured access policies, missing database security controls, unprotected APIs, shadow data, and more.
Putting all your stock in the VM basket leaves all these other avenues exposed.
Not All Vulns Are Created Equal
Besides vulnerability fatigue, not all vulnerabilities are worth patching. Consider the opportunity cost of patching a benign CVE just because it’s on the list.
Think of what could have been done with that time, like threat hunting, discovering shadow data, or fixing something more important. For instance:
- A “Medium” risk on a Domain Controller could be an emergency.
- A “Critical” alert on an isolated print server may be noise.
CVSS scores don’t give you that extra data. They don’t tell you what’s best for the business. They just label which threat is most severe against an objective, external standard. And that doesn’t even tell you which threats attackers are actively exploiting. Even clearing out all “Critical” alerts isn’t guaranteed to get you any close to “safe.” You need additional context for that.
The bottom line? Teams need to shift the metric from counting (how many bugs did we squash?) to context (did we fix the security gap that actually threatens revenue?). This context-driven remediation is embodied in exposure management platforms today.
Exposure Management: Curing Vulnerability Fatigue
Exposure management (EM) platforms are purpose-built to deliver actionable insights that tell teams where the business value lies—and what’s at stake.
Once organizations determine which assets are most business critical, EM platforms scour the entire attack surface identifying what could go wrong. Does this include vulnerabilities? Yes. But it includes so much more.
Exposure management, or exposure assessment, solutions cover:
- Misconfigurations
- Third-party risks
- Unguarded APIs
- Sensitive data exposures
- Identity issues
- Cloud risks (publicly exposed S3 buckets)
- And more
While VM platforms give you part of the picture, they leave most of it out. Especially given the complex architecture of most modern enterprises today.
This is why single-minded investments in vulnerability management programs can only do so much. Even clearing the backlog one hundred percent would still leave organizations exposed. And because VM is still essentially reactive, it wouldn’t age well in an era when AI-driven attackers demand proactive mitigation.
This is why VM programs are on the way out, and exposure assessment solutions are on the way in. At least according to Gartner.
What Gartner Has to Say About Exposure Management vs. Vulnerability Management
Gartner has made its opinion clear on where it stands in the exposure management vs. vulnerability management debate: EM is the clear winner by a mile.
“Security operations managers should go beyond vulnerability management and build a continuous threat exposure management program to more effectively scope and remediate exposures,” they state in their publication “How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management.”
Additional insights include:
- The limitations of VM: “Creating prioritized lists of security vulnerabilities isn’t enough to cover all exposures or find actionable solutions.”
- A roadmap to pivot “from traditional technology vulnerability management to a broader, more dynamic CTEM [Continuous Threat and Exposure Management] program.
- The need to get preemptive: VM programs are, by nature, reactive. It’s not enough to identify risk that already exists. Gartner notes that “there are too many vendors adding exposure management capabilities” and that to “survive and thrive, vendors must deliver preemptive exposure management solutions.”
The results are clear, at least according to Gartner. In today’s digital climate, organizations that want to keep up need to be tracking more than vulnerabilities alone.
Conclusion
“Clearing out the backlog” is an old solution to a new problem, and it no longer works.
Teams need to see more than CVEs. And their enterprise security strategies need to hinge on more than isolated CVSS scores.
To “patch everything” is to patch too much and yet fix too little at the same time. It wastes resources, steals valuable SOC cycles, and leaves stones unturned that EM doesn’t.
As security leaders future-proof their plans, “patch everything” need to become “patch some things—and only those things that have the most impact to the business.” That way, no unseen threat will be left behind.
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About the Author:
Katrina Thompson is an ardent believer in personal data privacy and the technology behind it. She is a freelance writer leaning into encryption, data privacy legislation, and the intersection of information technology and human rights. She has written for Bora, Venafi, Tripwire, and many other sites.
