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Exposure score in Defender Vulnerability Management

  • Applies to: Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, Microsoft Defender XDR, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Plan 2, Microsoft Defender for Servers Plan 1 & 2

Note

The Vulnerability Management section in the Microsoft Defender portal is now located under Exposure management. With this change, you can now consume and manage security exposure data and vulnerability data in a unified location, to enhance your existing Vulnerability Management features. Learn more.

These changes are relevant for Preview customers (Microsoft Defender XDR + Microsoft Defender for Identity preview option).

Your exposure score is visible in the Defender Vulnerability Management overview page in the Microsoft Defender portal.

Tip

Did you know you can try all the features in Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management for free? Find out how to sign up for a free trial.

What is exposure score?

Note

This section describes the Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management experience for customers using the Microsoft Defender XDR + Microsoft Defender for Identity preview. This experience is part of the integration of Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management into Microsoft Security Exposure Management. Learn more.

The Endpoint exposure score card in the Exposure management > Vulnerability management > Overview page reflects how vulnerable your organization is to cybersecurity threats. Low exposure score means your devices are less vulnerable to exploitation.

  • Quickly understand and identify high-level takeaways about the state of security in your organization.
  • Detect and respond to areas that require investigation or action to improve the current state.
  • Communicate with peers and management about the impact of security efforts.

The card gives you a high-level view of your exposure score trend over time. Any spikes in the chart give you a visual indication of a high cybersecurity threat exposure that you can investigate further.

Exposure score card.

Exposure score is broken down into the following levels:

  • 0-29: low exposure score
  • 30-69: medium exposure score
  • 70-100: high exposure score

How to use exposure score to reduce your vulnerability exposure

When software weaknesses are identified, they're transformed into recommendations and prioritized based on risk to the organization. By remediating vulnerabilities with security recommendations prioritized to reduce your exposure score, you can reduce your overall vulnerability exposure.

To view security recommendations prioritized to reduce your exposure score:

  1. Do one of the following:
    • If you're a Microsoft Defender XDR + Microsoft Defender for Identity preview customer, go in the Vulnerability management > Overview page, select Improve score on the Endpoint exposure score card.
    • If you're an existing customer, in the Vulnerability management > Dashboard, select Improve score on the Exposure score card.

The security recommendations page will open with a list of security recommendations prioritized by the potential impact on your exposure score. The higher the impact on lowering your exposure by implementing a recommendation, the less vulnerable you'll be to exploitation. For more information, see security recommendations impact.

Using the top security recommendations, which can be viewed in the Defender Vulnerability Management dashboard can also help you achieve this goal.

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