Exception management in Container Vulnerability Response

Release version: Washingtondc

Updated February 1, 2024

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Summary of Exception Management in Container Vulnerability Response

Exception management allows organizations to request, review, and manage exceptions for container vulnerabilities (CVITs) that cannot be immediately remediated due to the absence of patches or fixes. When an exception is granted, it indicates a formal acceptance of the associated risks.

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Key Features

Requesting an Exception: Remediation owners can request exceptions for CVITs or remediation tasks (RTs) through a defined process. Once approved, the CVIT moves to a Deferred state.
Approval Workflow: Exception requests are reviewed by vulnerability analysts and can follow a two-level approval process. If a first-level approver is unavailable, exceptions cannot be requested.
Status Tracking: The status of exception requests can be monitored in the State Change Approvals tab, although individual CVIT status in an RT cannot be tracked once an action is taken on the RT.
Expiry Management: When an exception expires, the CVIT or RT returns to its Open state unless resolved in the next scan.
Approval Rules Configuration: Users can configure approval rules based on organizational needs, including default settings for two approval levels and properties for exception approvals.
False Positive Management: CVITs can be marked as false positives, with requests subject to approval from authorized users.

Key Outcomes

By utilizing exception management, ServiceNow customers can effectively handle container vulnerabilities that require deferral, maintain compliance with security policies, and mitigate risks associated with unremediated vulnerabilities. Automated processes streamline the exception workflow, ensuring timely reviews and approvals.

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.