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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Vulnerability Management Analyst

💰 $80,000 - $130,000

CybersecurityVulnerability ManagementIT RiskSecurity Operations

🎯 Role Definition

The Vulnerability Management Analyst is responsible for managing the full vulnerability lifecycle across on-premises, cloud and hybrid environments. This role owns vulnerability scanning and discovery, triage and validation of findings, risk-based prioritization, remediation tracking, and verification of fixes. The analyst partners with IT, engineering, cloud, and application teams to reduce attack surface, tune scanning programs to minimize false positives, and implement automation to accelerate time-to-remediate. Strong experience with tools like Tenable, Qualys, Rapid7, SAST/DAST/SCA integrations, and ticketing systems (ServiceNow/Jira) is essential. The ideal candidate is a pragmatic problem-solver, capable of translating technical risk into measurable KPIs and business-focused remediation plans.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Security Operations Center (SOC) Analyst transitioning into proactive risk reduction
  • Systems Administrator or Network Engineer with strong patching and configuration experience
  • IT Risk Analyst or Patch Management Analyst

Advancement To:

  • Vulnerability Management Lead / Manager
  • Threat & Vulnerability Management (TVM) Program Manager
  • Security Operations Manager or Head of Security Engineering

Lateral Moves:

  • Cloud Security Engineer
  • Incident Response / Digital Forensics Analyst
  • Application Security Engineer / SAST/DAST Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Manage the end-to-end vulnerability lifecycle: schedule and execute authenticated and unauthenticated scans, validate findings, assign remediation tasks, track progress, and verify remediation across servers, endpoints, network devices, cloud assets, and containers using Tenable, Qualys, Rapid7 or equivalent.
  • Conduct daily and weekly triage of vulnerability findings to remove false positives, contextualize findings against asset criticality, and map to active threats and exploitability to prioritize remediation tasks.
  • Implement and maintain risk-based prioritization frameworks (CVSS, CVE score enrichment, exploit maturity, business criticality, exposure) to drive remediation decisions and optimize limited remediation resources.
  • Integrate vulnerability scanning results into ticketing platforms (ServiceNow, Jira) and automate creation, routing, SLA enforcement, and escalation workflows to engineering and IT teams.
  • Work closely with patch management and release teams to align vulnerability remediation with patch cycles, hotfix releases, and change management windows to minimize business impact while meeting security SLAs.
  • Design, build and maintain dashboards and metrics (time-to-remediate, patch coverage, closure rate, open critical vulnerabilities) for technical teams and executive stakeholders using Splunk, Kibana, Power BI or Tableau.
  • Administer and tune vulnerability management tools (scan policies, credentialed scanning, asset grouping) to improve coverage, reduce noise and ensure repeatable, reliable scanning across environments.
  • Perform cloud-native vulnerability assessments for AWS, Azure, and GCP, including discovery of cloud misconfigurations, IAM risks, exposed services and container image scanning using cloud-native and third-party tools.
  • Validate remediation by performing re-scans and manual verification, documenting remediation evidence, and updating asset risk posture in the CMDB or asset inventory.
  • Enrich scan data with external threat intelligence (exploit kits, active CVEs, public PoCs) and map findings to MITRE ATT&CK techniques to communicate likely attacker paths and prioritize mitigation.
  • Develop and maintain playbooks and runbooks for triage, remediation verification, exception handling, and emergency response for critical vulnerabilities or zero-day exploits.
  • Collaborate with application development and DevOps teams to integrate SAST/DAST/SCA findings into CI/CD pipelines and establish shift-left vulnerability remediation practices.
  • Lead vulnerability exception and risk-acceptance processes: evaluate business impact, document compensating controls, obtain proper approvals, and track exceptions until resolution.
  • Conduct periodic vulnerability assessments for third-party vendors and SaaS providers and coordinate remediation expectations as part of vendor risk management.
  • Serve as technical SME for audits and compliance activities (PCI, HIPAA, SOC2, NIST), providing vulnerability program evidence, reporting, remediation timelines and controls mapping.
  • Create and deliver targeted vulnerability and remediation awareness training for IT, DevOps and business stakeholders to improve mean-time-to-remediate and reduce recurrence of systemic weaknesses.
  • Drive automation and orchestration opportunities using scripting (Python, PowerShell, Bash) and SOAR platforms to accelerate triage, ticketing, and remediation validation for high-volume findings.
  • Conduct root cause analysis for recurring vulnerabilities and collaborate with engineering to implement long-term fixes such as configuration changes, secure coding practices, or architectural improvements.
  • Participate in vulnerability discovery beyond scanner coverage: manual checks, web application assessments, container image reviews and collaboration with penetration testing teams to close gaps.
  • Maintain and reconcile the asset inventory and CMDB to ensure accurate scanner coverage and appropriate risk attribution to hosts, applications and business services.
  • Create clear, concise technical and executive reports that translate vulnerability risk into business impact and recommended remediation roadmaps and timelines.
  • Monitor vulnerability vendor advisories, CVE feeds, security mailing lists and exploit intelligence to detect high-risk vulnerabilities early and coordinate emergency response for critical exposures.
  • Support change management review boards by providing vulnerability impact assessments and remediation plans for proposed changes or new deployments.
  • Benchmark and continuously improve the vulnerability management program by defining KPIs, conducting program health reviews and implementing best practices informed by industry standards and frameworks.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc reporting requests, special projects and exploratory analysis to help leadership understand risk trends and program effectiveness.
  • Contribute to the organization's vulnerability management strategy, program roadmap and continuous improvement initiatives.
  • Collaborate with business units, incident response, cloud, and application owners to translate vulnerability findings into prioritized engineering requirements and remediation plans.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies with security engineering and DevOps teams to ensure vulnerability remediation work is included in delivery cycles.
  • Provide mentorship and knowledge sharing to junior analysts and cross-functional teams on vulnerability triage, CVSS interpretation, and remediation best practices.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Strong hands-on experience with vulnerability management platforms (Tenable.sc/Tenable.io, Tenable Nessus, Qualys VMDR, Rapid7 InsightVM) for scanning, tuning and reporting.
  • Deep understanding of CVSS scoring, CVE lookup, exploitability scoring and risk-based prioritization methodologies.
  • Practical experience with cloud security and scanning tools for AWS, Azure and GCP; familiarity with cloud misconfigurations, IAM risk and infrastructure-as-code assessment.
  • Container and image scanning knowledge (Docker, Kubernetes, Clair, Trivy) and experience integrating container scanning into CI/CD pipelines.
  • Proficient scripting and automation skills (Python, PowerShell, Bash) to automate scanning, data enrichment, ticketing, and remediation verification workflows.
  • Working knowledge of SAST/DAST/SCA tools (e.g., Snyk, Veracode, Checkmarx, Burp, OWASP ZAP) and how to correlate findings with VM programs.
  • Experience integrating vulnerability data into SIEMs/analytics platforms (Splunk, Elastic Stack) and SOAR/automation platforms (Phantom, Demisto) for alerting and orchestration.
  • Familiarity with ticketing and ITSM systems (ServiceNow, Jira) and building robust workflows for remediation assignment and SLA tracking.
  • Knowledge of security frameworks and compliance standards (NIST CSF, CIS Controls, PCI DSS, HIPAA, SOC2) and ability to map VM controls to these standards.
  • Understanding of networking, system hardening, Windows/Linux administration, and common exploit vectors to help triage and recommend mitigations.
  • Ability to perform vulnerability data enrichment using threat intelligence feeds, exploit databases (Metasploit, ExploitDB) and public CVE sources.

Soft Skills

  • Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to translate technical vulnerability risk into business impact and remediation plans for executive audiences.
  • Excellent stakeholder management and cross-functional collaboration skills; able to drive remediation through influence and operational coordination.
  • Analytical mindset with strong attention to detail and ability to perform root-cause analysis for recurring vulnerabilities.
  • Prioritization and time management skills to balance tactical scan/triage work with strategic program improvements.
  • Problem-solving orientation and persistence in resolving complex, cross-team vulnerability issues.
  • Customer-service oriented approach when working with application and infrastructure teams to facilitate timely remediation.
  • Ability to create clear documentation, playbooks and runbooks for repeatable vulnerability management processes.
  • Comfortable working in fast-paced environments and managing high-severity incidents with composure.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Information Technology, Cybersecurity, Network Engineering, or a related technical discipline.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor's degree plus relevant industry certifications (CISSP, CCSP, CEH, CompTIA Security+, GIAC GMON/GVUX/GVCP).
  • Advanced degree (MS) in Cybersecurity, Information Assurance or related field is a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Cybersecurity / Information Security
  • Information Systems / Network Engineering
  • Software Engineering

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 2–5 years of hands-on experience in vulnerability management, security operations, IT administration, or related security roles.

Preferred:

  • 4–7+ years of direct experience running enterprise vulnerability management programs, including cloud and container environments.
  • Proven track record implementing or scaling VM programs in mid-to-large enterprises, integrating with patch management and CI/CD pipelines.
  • Demonstrated experience with the tools and processes listed in the Hard Skills section and exposure to regulatory compliance and audit support.
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