Taming the CVE Chaos: Making Unified Vulnerability Management a Reality for Healthcare CISOs Steven Hajny

As a former customer in the trenches of vulnerability management, I’ve had my share of hair-pulling moments. I’ve stared down CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) lists so long they could double as novels, all while struggling to patch a patchwork of systems that felt like they were screaming for attention from every corner of the ecosystem. If you’ve ever tried to make sense of all those vulnerability feeds in healthcare—where downtime can mean life or death—then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Finding and managing vulnerabilitiesLet’s start with the problem: finding and managing vulnerabilities across a healthcare ecosystem is like trying to play a symphony while all your instruments are scattered across different rooms. Every tool has its own data feed—asset management over here, security scanner over there, threat intel in the cloud somewhere. These feeds are often siloed, coming in different formats like APIs, CSVs, JSONs, you name it. So, trying to aggregate and normalize that data is a Herculean task. You’ve got scanners finding thousands of vulnerabilities daily, and no one has time to sift through all that noise to figure out what actually matters.

Patching process?The patching process? Don’t even get me started. Prioritizing vulnerabilities based on their criticality is one thing, but figuring out which business unit, department, or system is impacted adds a whole new layer of complexity. It’s like being told to extinguish the most dangerous fire in a burning city, but you’ve got 100 fires and no map. Then when you put it out you find out that patch is actually a bug riddled piece of software causing you to rollback and move to the next one.

Unified vulnerability managementUnified vulnerability management (UVM)—which has come to Zscaler via our recent acquisition of Avalor—is like that firefighter you didn’t know you needed. It turns this chaos into a manageable flow, contextualizing and prioritizing vulnerabilities so you know where to focus first. Think of it as your data therapist; it listens to all the disparate data points from those vulnerability feeds and, instead of just giving you a long laundry list, it helps you understand how each vulnerability impacts your specific environment.

As a customer, one of the things that always bogged me down was the sheer volume of CVEs. I’d spend hours trying to figure out which vulnerabilities were actually relevant to us, because not every CVE is a five-alarm fire. Zscaler UVM steps in by contextualizing these CVEs—it doesn’t just say, “Here’s a vulnerability.” It tells you, “This is the one that impacts your patient data system, and oh, by the way, it’s currently being exploited in the wild.” That’s actionable intel.

PrioritizationAnd when it comes to prioritization, UVM doesn’t just rank vulnerabilities by severity score; it takes into account business context, environmental factors, and whether a system is internet-facing. This means your team can stop chasing vulnerabilities that don’t matter and start focusing on the ones that can bring real damage. When you’re managing healthcare systems, this can be a game-changer. It’s not just about knowing a vulnerability exists; it’s about knowing what’s going to hurt you the most and handling that first.

IntegrationThe other gem is the integration of these disparate feeds into a unified view. No more hopping between systems, trying to compare apples to oranges. UVM brings everything together, giving you a single pane of glass to view all your vulnerabilities across systems and feeds. Plus, you can easily integrate with ticketing systems like Jira, so when you do need to take action, it’s logged and managed efficiently.

Putting it all togetherIn a past life, I would’ve done just about anything for a tool like this—something that actually prioritized and automated risk management rather than leaving me guessing which vulnerability would take down the network first. In healthcare, the stakes are even higher, and UVM helps you navigate this complex web with some much-needed clarity.

At the end of the day, managing vulnerabilities in healthcare doesn’t have to feel like a perpetual game of whack-a-mole. The sheer scale of data you have to process—from legacy systems to new IoT devices and cloud integrations—makes it easy to get overwhelmed. Now, tools like Zscaler UVM cut through that noise, bringing order to chaos by automating the grunt work and highlighting what truly matters.

Gone are the days of manually correlating data from disparate systems. The security data fabric at the heart of UVM lets you pull all your feeds together—whether it’s from threat intelligence, scanners, or asset management systems—into one unified dashboard. The real kicker is how it prioritizes based on contextual risk. In healthcare, you’re not just worried about some generic server issue; you’re concerned about patient data, life-support systems, and compliance with regulations like HIPAA. UVM understands this and gives you a risk ranking based on your specific environment and threats.

For anyone in healthcare cybersecurity, this is a game-changer. It’s no longer just about patching vulnerabilities—it’s about knowing which ones to patch first and which can wait. When time and resources are limited, that insight is invaluable.

In my former role, I often found myself scrambling to explain to upper management why certain vulnerabilities had to take precedence over others, and it wasn’t always easy. UVM simplifies that conversation. It gives CISOs the power to say, “This is why we need to focus here, and this is the impact if we don’t.” It’s not just a tool—it’s a strategy enabler.

So, if you’re a healthcare CISO struggling with endless CVEs, disparate data sources, and the pressure of keeping critical systems secure, Zscaler Unified Vulnerability Management might just be the ally you need. Trust me, after my experiences, this kind of solution isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessity.  

​[#item_full_content] [[{“value”:”As a former customer in the trenches of vulnerability management, I’ve had my share of hair-pulling moments. I’ve stared down CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) lists so long they could double as novels, all while struggling to patch a patchwork of systems that felt like they were screaming for attention from every corner of the ecosystem. If you’ve ever tried to make sense of all those vulnerability feeds in healthcare—where downtime can mean life or death—then you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Finding and managing vulnerabilitiesLet’s start with the problem: finding and managing vulnerabilities across a healthcare ecosystem is like trying to play a symphony while all your instruments are scattered across different rooms. Every tool has its own data feed—asset management over here, security scanner over there, threat intel in the cloud somewhere. These feeds are often siloed, coming in different formats like APIs, CSVs, JSONs, you name it. So, trying to aggregate and normalize that data is a Herculean task. You’ve got scanners finding thousands of vulnerabilities daily, and no one has time to sift through all that noise to figure out what actually matters.

Patching process?The patching process? Don’t even get me started. Prioritizing vulnerabilities based on their criticality is one thing, but figuring out which business unit, department, or system is impacted adds a whole new layer of complexity. It’s like being told to extinguish the most dangerous fire in a burning city, but you’ve got 100 fires and no map. Then when you put it out you find out that patch is actually a bug riddled piece of software causing you to rollback and move to the next one.

Unified vulnerability managementUnified vulnerability management (UVM)—which has come to Zscaler via our recent acquisition of Avalor—is like that firefighter you didn’t know you needed. It turns this chaos into a manageable flow, contextualizing and prioritizing vulnerabilities so you know where to focus first. Think of it as your data therapist; it listens to all the disparate data points from those vulnerability feeds and, instead of just giving you a long laundry list, it helps you understand how each vulnerability impacts your specific environment.

As a customer, one of the things that always bogged me down was the sheer volume of CVEs. I’d spend hours trying to figure out which vulnerabilities were actually relevant to us, because not every CVE is a five-alarm fire. Zscaler UVM steps in by contextualizing these CVEs—it doesn’t just say, “Here’s a vulnerability.” It tells you, “This is the one that impacts your patient data system, and oh, by the way, it’s currently being exploited in the wild.” That’s actionable intel.

PrioritizationAnd when it comes to prioritization, UVM doesn’t just rank vulnerabilities by severity score; it takes into account business context, environmental factors, and whether a system is internet-facing. This means your team can stop chasing vulnerabilities that don’t matter and start focusing on the ones that can bring real damage. When you’re managing healthcare systems, this can be a game-changer. It’s not just about knowing a vulnerability exists; it’s about knowing what’s going to hurt you the most and handling that first.

IntegrationThe other gem is the integration of these disparate feeds into a unified view. No more hopping between systems, trying to compare apples to oranges. UVM brings everything together, giving you a single pane of glass to view all your vulnerabilities across systems and feeds. Plus, you can easily integrate with ticketing systems like Jira, so when you do need to take action, it’s logged and managed efficiently.

Putting it all togetherIn a past life, I would’ve done just about anything for a tool like this—something that actually prioritized and automated risk management rather than leaving me guessing which vulnerability would take down the network first. In healthcare, the stakes are even higher, and UVM helps you navigate this complex web with some much-needed clarity.

At the end of the day, managing vulnerabilities in healthcare doesn’t have to feel like a perpetual game of whack-a-mole. The sheer scale of data you have to process—from legacy systems to new IoT devices and cloud integrations—makes it easy to get overwhelmed. Now, tools like Zscaler UVM cut through that noise, bringing order to chaos by automating the grunt work and highlighting what truly matters.

Gone are the days of manually correlating data from disparate systems. The security data fabric at the heart of UVM lets you pull all your feeds together—whether it’s from threat intelligence, scanners, or asset management systems—into one unified dashboard. The real kicker is how it prioritizes based on contextual risk. In healthcare, you’re not just worried about some generic server issue; you’re concerned about patient data, life-support systems, and compliance with regulations like HIPAA. UVM understands this and gives you a risk ranking based on your specific environment and threats.

For anyone in healthcare cybersecurity, this is a game-changer. It’s no longer just about patching vulnerabilities—it’s about knowing which ones to patch first and which can wait. When time and resources are limited, that insight is invaluable.

In my former role, I often found myself scrambling to explain to upper management why certain vulnerabilities had to take precedence over others, and it wasn’t always easy. UVM simplifies that conversation. It gives CISOs the power to say, “This is why we need to focus here, and this is the impact if we don’t.” It’s not just a tool—it’s a strategy enabler.

So, if you’re a healthcare CISO struggling with endless CVEs, disparate data sources, and the pressure of keeping critical systems secure, Zscaler Unified Vulnerability Management might just be the ally you need. Trust me, after my experiences, this kind of solution isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessity.”}]]