Exception management in Container Vulnerability Response

Release version: Yokohama

Updated January 30, 2025

3 minutes to read

Summarize

Summarized using AI

Summary of Exception management in Container Vulnerability Response

Exception management in Container Vulnerability Response allows organizations to formally request, review, approve, or reject exceptions when a container vulnerable item (CVIT) cannot be remediated according to vulnerability management policies. This process acknowledges the risk of deferring remediation due to unavailable patches or fixes, and manages the lifecycle of these exceptions from request through approval, tracking, and expiry.

Show full answer Show less

Requesting and Approving Exceptions

As a remediation owner, you can request an exception to defer remediation of a CVIT or remediation task (RT) for a defined period, such as when no patch exists. Exception requests move to a Deferred state upon approval. Exception approvals are typically conducted by vulnerability analysts who assess risk and may involve a two-level approval workflow. If a first-level approver is not configured, exceptions cannot be requested. The default approval process can be customized, and starting with Vulnerability Response v15.0, the flow designer is used for exception management workflows.

Tracking and Managing Exceptions

Once an exception is approved, actions such as reopening, deleting, or updating assignments can be performed. The status of exceptions is tracked via the State Change Approvals tab on the CVIT or RT record. When an exception expires, the CVIT or RT reverts to an Open state. If vulnerabilities are resolved in subsequent scans, their status changes to Closed with a Fixed substate.

Approval Rules Configuration

You can view and configure approval rules under Administration > Approval rules. The system includes default approval rules with multiple levels for exceptions and false positives. Exception approval levels and approver groups are configurable via system properties, allowing tailoring of the approval workflow to organizational needs. From version 2.5 onwards, time frames for approval and email notifications can be configured to ensure timely responses. Unapproved requests revert to Open status after the set time frame.

Automation and False Positives

Exception rules can automate the deferral of CVITs by automatically deferring matching vulnerabilities when identified by the system. Additionally, CVITs and remediation tasks can be marked and approved as false positives, with approvers having write access to approve such requests. This helps streamline vulnerability management by filtering out non-issues effectively.

When your organization can't comply with a published vulnerability management or security policy, standard, or guideline, you can request an exception. Exception management entails requesting, reviewing, approving, or rejecting exceptions to an container vulnerable item (CVIT) that cannot be remediated according to the policy.

Some container vulnerabilities (CVIT) might not have an existing patch, fix, or solution. When an exception is approved, it also means that you're accepting a risk because you're acknowledging and agreeing to the consequences of not remediating the vulnerability.

Life cycle of an exception

Definition of an exception: An exception is a request to defer the remediation of a CVIT or RT for a specified period. For example, as a remediation owner, you can request an exception if a patch is not available for a machine.
Requesting an exception: As the remediation owner, you can ask for an exemption for a CVIT or RT using the exception management process. After the exception approver approves this request, the CVIT or RT moves to a Deferred state.
Approving an exception request: CVIT or RTs that can't be remediated immediately are reviewed by vulnerability analysts, assessed for risk, and approved for deferral until they can be remediated. Approving an exception request can be a two-level workflow. If only the first-level approver is present, the exception can be requested and approved. However, if there's no first-level approver, an exception can't be requested. See Add an exception approver for more information.

Note:

Starting from Vulnerability Response v15.0, if you are deploying the VR application for the first time, the flow designer for exception management is enabled by default. If you are already using the workflow, you can update to the flow designer. In both cases, you cannot change it back to workflow. To configure approval rules for exception management and false positive, see Configure approval rules for Exception Management.

Once an exception request for a CVIT or RT is approved, you can perform the following actions:

Reopen
Delete
Update the Assignment to or Assignment groups fields

Tracking an exception request: After raising the exception, you can track its status by using the State Change Approvals tab of the CVIT or RT. If an action is taken on an RT, you can't track the status of the individual CVITs in that RT.
Expiry of an exception request: When an exception request for a particular CVIT or RT expires, the impacted CVIT or RT reverts to its Open state.

If a single CVIT or all the CVITs in a RT pass in the next scan, then the CVITs and, where applicable, the RT State field changes to Closed with the substate Fixed.

Configure approval rules

View and configure approval rules by navigating to All > Container Vulnerability Response > Administration > Approval rules. Request an exception for the CVITs that cannot be remediated or deferred immediately, by identifying the impacted vulnerabilities, configuration items (CIs), or CVITs. Automate the CVIT deferral process. Defer the matching CVITs based on these rules when the system identifies these CVITs.

The following approval rules are shipped by default:

Approval for Exception Requests: A default configuration with two approval levels is provided in the base system. Whenever there is an exception request on a vulnerable item, the approval request is sent to the users or groups present in level 1. Once approved by level 1 approvers, it is sent to the level 2 approvers.
Note:
You can change the default levels and edit as required. Starting from Container Vulnerability Response v2.0.6, you can use the system properties provided in the base system for exception approvals via workflow in the System Properties [sys_properties] table. So, when an exception or false positive request is raised via workflow, it’s sent for approval to the group IDs defined in the system property. Navigate to All > System Properties and select sn_vul_container.container_exception_approver_L1, sn_vul_container.container_exception_approver_L2, or sn_vul_container.container_false_positive_approver_group to change the property value.
Approval for Exception Rules: It does not have configuration but two approval levels.
Approval for False Positives: It has one configuration with one approval level.

Note:

Starting from v2.5 of Container Vulnerability Response, you can configure the time frames for approving false positives and exceptions, along with email notifications for both the approver and requester after a set number of days. When a request is raised, the container vulnerable item changes to In-Review status and a state change record is created. If the approver doesn't respond within the configured time frame, the container vulnerable item or remediation task reverts to Open status. The previous state is stored in the backup_state field. For more information, see Configure approval rules for Exception Management.