Updated 2026-10-04 · Security operations

Vulnerability management
security risk statistics.

A source-first view of exposure, attack paths and the speed at which material findings are closed. Published findings provide context; the measurement framework shows what to calculate inside your own environment.

01 / Published evidence

What the public data says.

Each figure links directly to the organization that published it. Vendor telemetry and community surveys are labelled rather than blended into one invented industry average.

≈$2M

lower breach cost with extensive security AI and automation

IBM reported average savings of almost $2 million compared with organizations not using those capabilities.

IBM 2026 Cost of a Data Breach · 2026 ↗

02 / Your baseline

Measure the system you actually run.

Use these formulas consistently for at least one complete operating cycle. Keep scope, exclusions and collection dates beside the result.

01

Critical exposure density

Open critical exposures ÷ 100 in-scope assets

Use one stable denominator and record exclusions.
02

Median remediation age

Median days from validated finding to verified closure

Use one stable denominator and record exclusions.
03

Repeat finding rate

Reopened or recurring findings ÷ all closed findings × 100

Use one stable denominator and record exclusions.

03 / Interpretation

A number without a denominator is decoration.

Segment results by environment, workload owner and business criticality. A falling average can hide one critical service getting worse; a rising count can simply reflect better discovery.

  • Record the source system and collection window.
  • Separate discovered, in-scope and actively managed populations.
  • Keep medians and tail values where averages hide risk.
  • Annotate architecture, policy and tooling changes.
  • Recalculate after remediation instead of closing on intent.

Related benchmarks

Look at the adjacent signal.

Security operations

adoption and scale

Continue with the how widely the capability is used and how quickly its footprint is growing view.

Security operations

cost and efficiency

Continue with the unit economics, waste and the engineering effort needed to operate the capability view.

Security operations

operations and reliability

Continue with the change quality, recovery speed and whether the running system meets its objectives view.

Want these numbers from your cloud?

Gritt can map the data sources, calculate a defensible baseline and implement the changes behind it.

Build the baseline →