Prioritization methods vary: roughly 43% use compliance-driven models, about one-third rely on risk-based approaches incorporating exploitability and business impact, with threat intelligence increasingly guiding decisions.

The vulnerability burden is rising, straining security operations as 56% report higher staff workload and concerns over prioritization, false positives, and slower incident responses; many organizations are upgrading tools and tightening internal processes in response.

Mean time to remediate critical issues averages about four weeks, and even with formal workflows and automation, many teams still rely on manual triage cycles.

Operational constraints and budget pressures are top barriers to improvement (43% and 41%), followed by technology complexity, change resistance, and skills shortages; progress is hampered by limited resources and under-prioritization of vulnerability management.

Respondents credit CTEM and VOC platforms with clear benefits: automation, improved prioritization, real-time visibility, and ongoing assessment.

External threat data enriches prioritization in about 80% of organizations, particularly where automation and defined workflows are strongest; automation also correlates with faster remediation and fewer false positives.

Organizations average four detection tools, with cloud or container config audits most common at 85%, creating visibility and prioritization challenges despite broad coverage.

A Hackuity-commissioned report notes fragmentation of tooling and gaps between exposure volume and resources, contributing to slower remediation across organizations.

An overwhelming 97% of organizations tie remediation SLAs to severity levels, and most meet them, though remediation times still lag behind issue volume.

Over half of remediation tasks go to security operations teams, a structure linked to faster responses due to closer threat proximity and better context.

Continuous vulnerability management is expanding: 65% have fully adopted CTEM, with larger firms leading in continuous assessment and real-time prioritization; VOC adoption sits at just over half for full implementation.

Automation is a core differentiator, with 56% reporting automated vulnerability management; higher automation drives quicker remediation, fewer false positives, and better scalability, while others rely on moderate or basic automation.