The way most organizations approach vulnerability scanning hasn't really changed much over the years. Run a scan weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Review the results. Prioritize what needs fixing. Rinse and repeat. It's like doing laundry...it never ends and you always seem to be missing a sock!
This model worked well when environments were static and vulnerabilities took weeks to exploit. But here's the thing: these conditions don't exist anymore. Environments are dynamic (like my mood before coffee), and exploit development has accelerated thanks to AI.
The result? A growing gap between how we identify vulnerabilities and how quickly those vulnerabilities can actually be exploited. And trust me, understanding that gap and what it means for your organization is critical. So, grab a coffee (or something stronger, I won't judge), and let's dive in.
The Problem with Scheduled Scans (Or Why Your Security Selfie Is Already Outdated)
Traditional, or scheduled, vulnerability scanning takes a snapshot of your environment at intervals. The problem? That snapshot is outdated the moment it's taken. It's like taking a photo of your bank account on payday assuming nothing's changed by end of month. (If you have kids…YOU KNOW things have changed. IYKYK)
In reality, environments are constantly evolving. New assets connect to networks. Software gets updated. Configurations change (sometimes without anyone telling you...shocking, I know!). And, most critically, new vulnerabilities are disclosed. Then there's AI, which has made exploit development faster and requires far less technical expertise than it used to. What once took skilled attackers time and effort to develop can now be partially automated. Great for them, but, also, OMG can they please take a break and let us catch up?!
When you scan monthly, you create a 30-day window of blindness. Quarterly scans? That's a 90-day window. During this time, you're making risk decisions with incomplete and increasingly inaccurate information about your actual exposure. I mean again, you get a bonus and look at the deposit and smile and then look at pending transactions, and Justin Timberlake's “Cry Me A River” starts playing in the background.
Now here's where it gets even more interesting (and, by interesting, I mean frustrating as hell). The coverage problem gets worse when you factor in scheduling constraints. Many organizations run scans after-hours or on weekends to minimize business impact. While that makes perfect sense operationally, it creates significant gaps: you're only scanning devices that are powered on and connected during those windows.
Workstations that employees shut down at the end of the day? Not scanned. Remote workers who disconnect their laptops? Not scanned. Devices in different time zones that are offline during your scanning window? Not scanned. Do you see the problem here?
The result is an incomplete vulnerability scan by design. You could be missing vulnerabilities on devices that may be among your highest-risk assets simply because they weren't available when the scan ran. That's not a minor inconvenience; it's a fundamental security gap that could bite you in the...well, you get the idea.
Why Continuous Scanning Changes the Equation (And Why You Should Care)
Continuous vulnerability scanning addresses these limitations by providing ongoing visibility into the vulnerabilities in an environment.
Here's what that means in practice:
This last point is worth emphasizing. MTTR measures the time between identifying a vulnerability and successfully remediating or patching it. With scheduled scans, a vulnerability that appears the day after your scan won't be identified until your next scheduled scan. That delay is baked into your process before your security team even knows there's a problem. It's like finding out you have a leak in your roof only after it rains...next month.
Continuous scanning eliminates that artificial delay. Your team can respond to critical vulnerabilities as they're identified rather than discovering them in batches weeks later. It's proactive versus reactive, and if you're still being reactive with your security in 2025, not that there is anything wrong with that (Jerry Seinfeld, get it?…never mind!), well...we need to talk.
The Bottom Line (Because I Know You're Busy)
From a risk management perspective, continuous scanning provides the more accurate, up-to-date visibility that teams need to protect a business and make informed decisions. It shifts the focus from compliance box-ticking to actual risk reduction, giving a true picture of risk exposure rather than a weeks-old snapshot.
For leadership, the question isn't whether continuous scanning provides benefits. It's whether their organization can afford the gaps created by scheduled scanning in an environment where exploit development happens faster than ever and environments change constantly.
Just something to think about.
PS- Almost all compliance frameworks are now requiring known exploited vulnerabilities to be patched in under 30 days.
PSS- It is better for your sanity!
PSSS- Just do it!
PSSSS- I have never had 4 S’s in a row.
Curious how this applies to your organization? Click here to learn more about Nodeware, the first truly continuous vulnerability scanning and management platform that scans 24x7 with no noticeable asset or network degradation.