Security Teams Rarely Stop to Reflect
When a security program is working well, very little seems to happen. That is by design. There is no alert for the incident that was prevented. No visibility into the attack path that was quietly closed. No recognition for the vulnerability that was fixed before it could be exploited.
For CISOs and security leaders, this is the reality of modern cybersecurity: progress is real, but often invisible. This invisibility creates a challenge. If success does not announce itself, how do you know whether risk is going down? Not just tracked in dashboards, but meaningfully improved across the organization.
That question is at the heart of your VMDR Year in Review. Watch a teaser trailer below.
Turning Daily Security Work Into Measurable Outcomes
For practitioners, progress comes down to execution. Managing a continuously expanding asset surface while maintaining comprehensive scan coverage as environments evolve.
Making prioritization decisions as vulnerabilities arrive faster than they can be fixed.
The Year in Review brings these realities together. It takes a year of day-to-day security operations and turns it into a clear, data-driven story. You can see what changed, where progress was made, and how prioritization and remediation decisions led to real reductions in risk. This is not about celebrating dashboards or activities for their own sake.
It’s about making security outcomes visible to practitioners, leadership, and business.
A Year of Growth and Control
As the Year in Review begins, one reality is immediately clear: environments don’t stand still. Over the past year, new assets were added across both on-premises and cloud environments, expanding the attack surface that attackers actively look for every day. VMDR continuously tracked these changes, maintaining an accurate, up-to-date view of the environment instead of relying on a point-in-time inventory.
Strong scan coverage ensured that this growth did not turn into blind spots. That foundation is critical for effective vulnerability management and long-term risk reduction. Visibility alone does not reduce risk. But without it, nothing else works.
From Vulnerability Volume to Meaningful Action
Every security team faces the same pressure: vulnerabilities arrive faster than they can be fixed.
The Year in Review makes this visible by showing how many vulnerabilities were detected across the environment and how that volume shifted over time. But it does not stop at detection. Instead, it shifts the focus to action and impact:
- How many vulnerabilities were remediated
- How exploitable vulnerabilities were prioritized first
- Where risk was actively reduced, not just identified
By moving beyond raw CVE counts, VMDR helps teams focus remediation where it matters most, reducing real-world exposure rather than chasing theoretical severity. This is the difference between staying busy and being effective.
When Threat Intelligence Becomes Operational
Some risks demand immediate attention.
By correlating vulnerabilities with real-world threat intelligence, including CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEVs), ransomware, and malware-linked exposures, VMDR highlights the issues attackers are actively exploiting today.
The Year in Review shows how quickly these risks were addressed, often faster than global benchmarks. This is not incidental. It’s the result of prioritization grounded in threat context, not just scoring models.
- For leadership, this provides confidence that remediation efforts are aligned to real attacker behavior.
- For practitioners, it validates that focus is being applied where it has the greatest impact.
Measuring Progress, Not Just Activity
Security teams are often measured by effort. VMDR helps measure outcomes instead. Risk posture trends and industry benchmarking in the Year in Review connect daily remediation work to broader improvement over time. That might mean clear year-over-year gains or maintaining stability in an environment that continues to grow more complex.
For CISOs preparing for board and executive discussions, this answers the question that matters most: Are we safer than last year? The Year in Review provides that answer with data, context, and evidence, not assumptions or anecdotes.
These metrics create a shared language across the organization. Practitioners see evidence that prioritization works. Leaders gain confidence that risk is being managed with intent, discipline, and measurable impact. This is how vulnerability management evolves into risk management.
Looking Ahead: The Art of the Possible with ETM
The Year in Review doesn’t just look back. It also points forward. After showcasing what’s been achieved with VMDR, the video introduces what becomes possible with Enterprise TruRisk™ Management (ETM). This is not a replacement for VMDR, but a natural evolution.
ETM extends visibility beyond known assets and infrastructure vulnerabilities to include:
- Previously unknown assets
- Broader discovery of internet-facing assets
- Identification of end-of-life and end-of-support technologies tied to known exploitation
- Noise reduction that surfaces the small percentage of issues driving the majority of risk
The conversation shifts from what exists to what matters most.
From Insights to Operations: Building a Risk Operations Center
Security success today is not defined by individual tools. It is defined by how teams work together.
ETM enables building a Risk Operations Center (ROC) that unifies exposure insights, prioritization, and remediation across attack surfaces and teams. AI-powered cyber risk agents help accelerate analysis, reduce manual effort, and support faster, more confident decision making.
The result is practical risk reduction. Data overload gives way to clear priorities and measurable outcomes.
Reflection That Fuels Acceleration
Your VMDR Year in Review is more than a summary. It is:
- Clear evidence of impact that can be shared with leadership
- Proof that risk-based prioritization delivers results
- A planning lens for the year ahead
As SEC cyber disclosure rules, NIS2 requirements, and cyber insurance expectations increasingly demand evidence of risk reduction, this level of visibility is no longer optional. It supports audit readiness, regulatory confidence, and defensible security reporting.
As threats continue to grow, progress won’t come from doing more. It will come from focusing better and operating smarter.
This Year in Review shows how far you’ve come. ETM shows how far you can go.
Your complete, personalized 2025 Wrapped video is available directly in your Qualys subscription. Simply log in and open VMDR to view it. You can also access the video anytime using the reminder in the top-right corner of the VMDR dashboard.
Interested in going deeper?
You can also request a follow-up conversation with a Qualys expert to review your Year in Review insights, discuss your recommendations, and help plan targeted improvements to further strengthen and accelerate your security program this year.
