Abstract: Apparatus, methods, and articles of manufacture or disclosed for implementing risk scoring systems used for vulnerability mitigation in a distributed computing environment. In one disclosed example, a computer-implemented method of mitigating vulnerabilities within a computing environment includes producing a risk score indicating at least one of: a vulnerability component, a security configuration component, or a file integrity component for an object within the computing environment, producing a signal score indicating a factor that contributes to risk for the object, and combining the risk score and the signal score to produce a combined risk score indicating a risk level associated with at least one vulnerability of the computing system object. In some examples, the method further includes mitigating the at least one vulnerability by changing a state of a computing object using the combined risk score.

Abstract: Apparatus and methods for analyzing vulnerabilities with an agent executing on a computer host using a vulnerability scanner and vulnerability server are disclosed. In one example a method comprises, with a vulnerability scanner, searching for data associated with a vulnerability test (for example, the command that initiates the test) to determine whether the data associated with the vulnerability is available or not available. When the data associated with the vulnerability test is available in a vulnerability scanner database, the vulnerability scanner provides prior scan results generated using one or more commands specified by the data to a vulnerability aggregation server. When the data associated with the vulnerability test is not available in the vulnerability scanner database, the vulnerability scanner performs a scan of the host to obtain results associated with the vulnerability test.