Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management
Endpoint-led exposure / vulnerability management
Continuous, endpoint-telemetry-driven vulnerability discovery deeply tied to Defender for Endpoint.
- Not itemizedGov / FedRAMP
- No / integrationBuilt-in patch
- NoOpen source
- SaaSDeployment
- Classification
- Endpoint-led vulnerability management, part of the Microsoft Defender / exposure-management ecosystem.
- Discovery / scanning
- Official/Verified: Continuous discovery via devices onboarded to Defender for Endpoint — device inventory, software inventory, browser-extension inventory, certificate inventory, hardware/firmware assessment.
- Agent model
- Official/Verified: Uses the Defender endpoint sensor rather than a separate VM agent; emphasizes continuous monitoring over periodic scans.
- Asset inventory
- Official/Verified: Device, software, browser-extension, and certificate inventory as part of the Defender telemetry model.
- Risk prioritization
- Official/Verified: Exposure Score, security recommendations, threat intelligence, breach-likelihood/organizational context, and device/security-configuration context.
- Remediation
- Official/Verified: Creates remediation activities; Microsoft Intune integration can generate remediation tickets/tasks. Zero-day mitigation workflows are also documented.
- ITSM / ticketing integration
- EVULNABLE Assessment: Ticketing is primarily through the Microsoft/Intune ecosystem rather than native, vendor-agnostic ServiceNow/Jira workflows — confirm integration depth for non-Microsoft ITSM tools.
- Cloud / container / OT coverage
- Official/Verified: Agentless vulnerability management for cloud servers, containers, and registries is available through Defender for Cloud.
- Data residency
- Not itemized in source research.
- Pricing
- Published Price: Standalone $3.00/user/month (annual commitment); add-on $2.00/user/month (annual commitment) for eligible Defender for Endpoint Plan 2 / Microsoft 365 E5 customers.Some core capabilities are already included in other Microsoft Defender plans.
- Time to initial data
- Estimated: Potentially hours if Defender is already deployed.
- Typical production rollout
- Estimated: Days to 4 weeks — fast for existing Defender for Endpoint customers; longer for new endpoint onboarding.
- Best-fit company size
- EVULNABLE Assessment: SMB through very large enterprise — especially organizations already standardized on Microsoft 365, Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Servers, Defender XDR, Intune, and Azure/Defender for Cloud.
- Potential limitations / evaluation considerations
- EVULNABLE Assessment: Weakest fit for organizations needing broad non-Windows/non-Defender network-appliance scanning; supported platforms vary in capability depth (Windows, Windows Server, macOS, several Linux distributions, Android, iOS/iPadOS).
Last verified: August 27, 2026
