Effective risk prioritization and vulnerability management are essential for securing modern cloud-native environments. Prisma Cloud offers robust features that help organizations assess, prioritize, and mitigate vulnerabilities using contextual insights. This article outlines key strategies and workflows for leveraging Prisma Cloud's risk factors, focusing on optimizing vulnerability remediation efforts.Risk prioritization in vulnerability management is achieved by combining environmental context and Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) risk factors, enabling organizations to focus on the most critical threats.
Prisma Cloud provides two categories of risk factors—CVE risk factors and Environmental risk factors—to identify and address vulnerabilities. These factors enable SecOps teams to assess vulnerabilities' potential impact and prioritize remediation based on the actual risk to their environment.
CVE Risk Factors:
Severity levels: Critical, High, and Medium.
Availability of fixes from maintainers.
Exploitation characteristics (e.g., remote execution, attack complexity).
Threat insights such as "Exploit in the wild" and "Recent vulnerability."
For instance, vulnerabilities classified as "remote execution" and "recent vulnerabilities" with an exploit available in the wild are flagged as high-priority due to their immediate risk.
Environmental Risk Factors:
Containers exposed to the internet.
Privileged container settings (e.g., root access, lack of security profiles).
Active usage of vulnerable packages in runtime.
The "Package in use" factor is a significant indicator, highlighting vulnerabilities in components actively used by critical workloads like containers and hosts.
Step 1: Identify Critical Workloads
Use the Inventory tab, Compute Radar, and Application Inventory to pinpoint "crown jewels" such as application critical workloads or clusters.
Figure 1: Inventory Tab_PaloAltoNetworks
Figure 2: Cloud Radar Tab_PaloAltoNetworks
Figure 3: Application Inventory_PaloAltoNetworks
Step 2: Prioritize Top Vulnerabilities
Use the Investigate tab to generate a ranked list of CVEs based on severity and risk factors, identifying high-impact vulnerabilities across your environment.
Figure 4: Vulnerability Explorer Tab_PaloAltoNetworks
Step 3: Focus on Critical Assets
Filter vulnerabilities by risk factor (e.g., "Package in use") and asset type (e.g., deployed containers or specific namespaces).
Example: A deployed container running a vulnerable tomcat-util package in a high-exposure namespace.
Figure 5: Investigate Tab_PaloAltoNetworks
Step 4: Remediate at the Source
Leverage the Code to Cloud (C2C) Graph to trace vulnerabilities to their origin, such as build systems or registry images.
Address issues early in the development lifecycle to prevent widespread exposure and minimize remediation overhead.
For example, vulnerabilities traced to a registry image used by multiple containers can be addressed once, significantly reducing remediation scope.
Figure 6: Code to Cloud Graph_PaloAltoNetworks
Click on the assets from the C2C graph and investigate the details of the packages used by the workload. In the following screenshot, you can see the total number of packages installed on a host machine
Figure 7: Workloads Package Info_PaloAltoNetworks
Prisma Cloud simplifies risk prioritization by combining vulnerability data with environmental context, enabling DevSecOps teams to focus on critical risks. Through detailed workflows—from identifying critical workloads to tracing vulnerabilities to their source—organizations can achieve effective remediation and strengthen their security posture. These strategies support establishing Key Risk Indicators (KRIs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for timely remediation.
Prisma Cloud Documentation on Risk Factors and Vulnerability Management
Code to Cloud Tracing for Vulnerabilities
Prisma Cloud Investigate Tab Features and Risk Factor Details
Explore Investigate Tab
Raqeeb Iliyas is a Prisma Cloud SME specializing in DevSecOps methodologies. He brings a wealth of knowledge in cloud security solutions to help global enterprise customers address their Cloud security Risks.
