Why Your Cloud Findings Stay Unfixed (While Application Security Issues Get Patched Fast)

Unequal Urgency

Through my time working in cybersecurity, I've consistently observed a notable gap in how quickly vulnerabilities are addressed. Application security flaws are usually patched with higher urgency, yet cloud infrastructure issues often persist unresolved for months. Understanding why this disparity exists isn't merely academic; it carries significant implications for every organization's security posture.

Why Application Security Issues Get Priority

Application vulnerabilities typically enjoy clear-cut accountability. When a critical flaw appears in an application, it's usually straightforward: developers or dedicated security teams step in promptly to remediate. This clarity stems from well-established security processes like Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) protocols, patch management practices, and well-defined regulatory compliance expectations for remediation (such as PCI DSS requirement 6.2, which mandates critical patches be installed within 30 days)¹.

In my experience working with different security teams, I've observed that critical application vulnerabilities are typically addressed within about two months (a timeline consistent with industry research)². This speed, although still subject to improvement, underscores how effective defined roles and mature remediation processes can be.

Furthermore, the stakes of unpatched application vulnerabilities are explicit—security advisories, Common Vulnerability and Exposure (CVE) listings, and intense public scrutiny through media reporting keep organizations focused and motivated to resolve these quickly.

Cloud Security: Ambiguity Creates Delays

In stark contrast, cloud infrastructure security issues face significantly longer timelines. You'd regularly find critical cloud findings taking an average of four months to remediate, nearly double the time for application issues (validated by recent research³). Even more concerning, data from industry surveys shows that 87% of enterprises now maintain backlogs exceeding 100 unresolved critical cloud vulnerabilities⁴.

Key Insight: A significant majority of enterprises maintain a backlog of over 100 unresolved critical cloud vulnerabilities, creating substantial organizational risk⁴.

Why does this happen? In cloud environments, responsibility frequently spans multiple teams: Cloud Operations, DevOps, Infrastructure Engineering, and dedicated Security teams. Unlike application issues, where responsibility is clear, cloud issues often fall into a gray area due to the shared responsibility model, which delineates the security roles between cloud service providers and their customers. For instance, who specifically owns the task of closing an exposed Amazon S3 bucket or tightening overly permissive Identity and Access Management (IAM) roles? Without defined ownership, vulnerabilities linger unresolved, bouncing back and forth between teams⁵.

Remediation Timeline Comparison

gantt
    title Remediation Timeline: Application vs. Cloud Vulnerabilities
    dateFormat  YYYY-MM-DD
    axisFormat  %b %d

    section Application Vulnerabilities
    Identification to Assignment      :done,    a1, 2023-01-01, 7d
    Remediation Process               :done,    a2, after a1, 50d
    Verification & Closure            :done,    a3, after a2, 3d

    section Cloud Vulnerabilities
    Identification & Ownership Ambiguity   :active,  c1, 2023-01-01, 30d
    Ticket Reassignments & Prioritization  :         c2, after c1, 60d
    Manual Remediation Process             :         c3, after c2, 35d
    Verification & Closure                 :         c4, after c3, 3d

The Pitfalls of Ticket-Based Remediation

Further complicating the matter is the prevalent reliance on traditional, ticket-based remediation processes. Tickets often become just another task, sitting idly in queues, being reassigned between teams, or deprioritized in favor of more immediate or clearly owned tasks. Research from IBM's Cost of a Data Breach Report underscores this issue, revealing that 62% of breaches originate from vulnerabilities organizations have already identified but left unresolved in backlogs⁶.

The critical reality is that attackers don't wait. Cybercriminals typically exploit vulnerabilities within just 15 days of their discovery, far quicker than most organizational response times⁷. The ticket-based approach, once adequate for slower-paced IT environments, now fails to match the speed and agility needed for today's dynamic cloud infrastructure.

Current Ticket-Based Workflow

graph TD
A["Security Scan Identifies Vulnerability"] --> B["Ticket Created"]
B --> C["Assigned to Security Team"]
C --> D{"Is Ownership Clear?"}
D -- No --> E["Ticket Reassigned"]
E --> C
D -- Yes --> F["Assigned to DevOps Team"]
F --> G{"Priority Agreed?"}
G -- No --> H["Ticket Delayed & Prioritized Lower"]
H --> F
G -- Yes --> I["Manual Fix Applied"]
I --> J["Validation by Security Team"]
J --> K["Ticket Closed"]

The Real-World Impact: When Cloud Issues Go Unresolved

The consequences of prolonged vulnerability exposure are very real. Misconfigurations remain the primary cause of over 80% of cloud security incidents⁸. High-profile breaches regularly make headlines often traced back to basic configuration oversights, like unencrypted data stores or misconfigured security groups left open to the internet.

Each unresolved vulnerability represents an open door, and the cumulative effect creates a significant organizational risk. The longer these issues remain unfixed, the greater the potential damage, ranging from costly data breaches to compliance penalties and substantial reputational harm.

How to Close the Remediation Gap: Clear Ownership and Automation

Addressing this disparity effectively involves two critical strategic shifts: clearly defined accountability and embracing intelligent automation.

Establishing Clear Ownership

Organizations making strides in cloud security explicitly define ownership. Embedding security specialists directly into DevOps and infrastructure teams ensures clear accountability. These integrated teams are better equipped to address issues quickly and effectively, significantly reducing remediation timelines. As a result, clear ownership not only accelerates response times but also cultivates a proactive security culture⁹.

Practical Implementation Tips:

• Create a cloud security RACI matrix that explicitly assigns ownership for each cloud resource type
• Designate security champions within infrastructure teams with dedicated time for security tasks
• Implement joint OKRs between security and cloud teams to align incentives
• Establish clear SLAs for remediation timeframes based on vulnerability severity
• Holding weekly or even bi-weekly cross-functional triage sessions can prevent ownership disputes

Embracing Intelligent Automation

Adopting automated, proactive remediation practices is crucial. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools, AI-powered analytics, and automated policy enforcement can drastically reduce the manual overhead associated with cloud vulnerability management. Recent cybersecurity research found that organizations utilizing automation reduced remediation timelines by up to 80%, highlighting automation's transformative potential¹⁰.

Practical Implementation Tips:

• Deploy IaC scanning pre-deployment to catch misconfigurations before they reach production
• Implement automated remediation workflows for common, low-risk vulnerabilities
• Create a library of remediation templates for predictable cloud security issues
• Use policy-as-code to enforce security guardrails that prevent high-risk deployments

It's important to acknowledge that implementing Infrastructure-as-Code pipelines requires significant upfront investment, with ROI directly proportional to organizational adoption. The level of IaC enforcement must be carefully calibrated to match acceptable friction thresholds within your organization's culture. Engineers will naturally prefer a one-click console-based change over the multi-step process of IaC-based change management. Striking the right balance between security automation and operational efficiency is key to successful implementation.

Automated Remediation Workflow

graph TD
A["Security Scan Identifies Vulnerability"] --> B["Auto-Triggered Remediation"] 
B --> C{"Is Issue High Risk?"}
C -- No --> D["Automated Remediation Applied"]
D --> E["Automatic Validation & Closure"]
C -- Yes --> F["Alert Sent to Integrated DevSecOps Team"]
F --> G["Immediate Manual Review"]
G --> H["Rapid Remediation via IaC"] 
H --> E

In conclusion, the solution isn't solely technical as it requires organizations to fundamentally rethink how security responsibilities are structured and how remediation processes operate. By integrating clearly defined ownership models and harnessing automation technologies, security teams can close the troubling remediation gap between cloud and application vulnerabilities. Achieving this will empower organizations to build security postures robust enough to handle the dynamic demands of modern cloud environments.

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This is the first post in the series "Automating Security Remediation for Cloud: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly" which examines the challenges and opportunities in automating cloud security fixes.

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References
¹ PCI Security Standards Council, "PCI DSS Requirements v4.0," 2022
² ZEST Security, "Cloud Risk Exposure Report," 2025
³ Tamnoon, "State of Cloud Remediation," 2025
⁴ ZEST Security, "Cloud Risk Exposure Impact Report," 2025
⁵ Venafi, "Cloud Security Incident Research," 2024
⁶ IBM Security, "Cost of a Data Breach Report," 2023
⁷ CISA, "Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog," 2024
⁸ Gartner, "Cloud Security Posture Management Guide," 2024
⁹ Oracle & KPMG, "Cloud Threat Report," 2024
¹⁰ Accenture, "Automated Remediation Research," 2024