For years, vulnerability management has focused on finding problems, not fixing them. Scanners and dashboards flood teams with tens of thousands of theoretical vulnerabilities, yet few organizations can prove which ones are exploitable or which actually matter to the business.

That’s why Horizon3.ai is enriching vulnerability scanners with NodeZero’s autonomous pentesting to deliver attacker-validated risk management. With new capabilities for High-Value Targeting, Advanced Data Pilfering, Threat Actor Intelligence, and Vulnerability Risk Intelligence, NodeZero now defines a new standard for Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (RBVM), bringing attacker context directly into how enterprises identify, prioritize, and fix what matters most.

From Noise → Exploitability → Attacker-Validated Risk

Legacy tools focus on discovery, exposing potential weaknesses but producing endless lists of suspected vulnerabilities without attacker context or proof.

NodeZero changed that with Continuous Autonomous Penetration Testing (CAPT), proving exploitability safely and at scale. That shift moved security teams from noise to proof.

Now, RBVM takes the next step from exploitability to attacker-validated risk. It connects vulnerabilities, assets, and data to real-world impact from the attacker’s perspective, providing clarity on which weaknesses actually matter.

This is where the new capabilities come in:

High-Value Targeting (HVT)

Identifies and prioritizes an organization’s most probable weaknesses such as executive identities and critical production systems, mapping each to business risks like executive impersonation, critical system shutdown, or operational disruption.

Advanced Data Pilfering (ADP)

Uncovers what attackers would actually steal, from credentials hidden in contracts to unannounced financials or sensitive source code. Each finding is autonomously tied to risks such as intellectual-property theft, regulatory penalties, or financial loss.

Threat Actor Intelligence (TAI)

Links exploitable vulnerabilities to the real-world adversaries who use them, from ransomware crews to nation-state groups, demonstrating the business impact of those attack paths, enabling organizations to better prioritize resources for threat actor pressure with the most impact.

Vulnerability Risk Intelligence (VRI)

Transforms raw vulnerability data into attacker-prioritized intelligence by bridging the gap between scanning and attacker validation. NodeZero analyzes findings by exploitability, highlights unique weaknesses, and removes tool aggregation noise, giving defenders attacker-validated visibility into business risk.

These capabilities give security teams a clear, validated roadmap of what to remediate, backed by real attacker behavior with explainable reasoning.

The Missing Link Between RBVM and FixOps™

RBVM answers what to fix. FixOps™ answers how fast you can prove it is fixed.

FixOps, the next evolution of security operations, builds on RBVM by connecting NodeZero’s Find → Fix → Verify Loop into a measurable, automated workflow. With the NodeZero MCP Server, organizations can now trigger pentests, orchestrate fixes, and verify remediation automatically using the same exploit-validated data that powers RBVM.

It is the bridge between attacker validation and agentic remediation:

• RBVM prioritizes the risks that matter.
• FixOps closes them and proves they are resolved.

This is where the real transformation happens, moving from vulnerability management as reporting to security operations as proof.

Why This Matters Now

Ten years ago, automation was limited by trust. You could not automate what you could not verify. NodeZero changes that by generating proof, exploit-verified evidence of what attackers can actually do.

With that proof, organizations can:

• Focus remediation on attacker-validated risks.
• Automate response playbooks that fix verified weaknesses.
• Continuously measure progress through metrics like Mean Time to Remediation (MTTR), Attacker Dwell Time, and Recurrence Rate.

RBVM defines what to fix. FixOps ensures it gets fixed and verified fast.

From Proof to Progress

RBVM is not just about identifying risk, it is about operationalizing it. With NodeZero, organizations can take the next steps that turn attacker insight into measurable outcomes.

• Bring Your Own Vulnerability Scanner Results
  Upload scanner exports and see which vulnerabilities are confirmed exploitable, contextually exploitable, or unexploitable with annotated outputs. NodeZero highlights unique findings and removes the need for aggregation tools that only normalize noise.
• Contextualize Your CMDB
  Reconcile and enrich your asset inventory by combining NodeZero’s attacker data with ServiceNow or other CMDB systems. This closes the gap between what IT thinks exists and what attackers can actually reach.
• Create Compliance-Specific Reports
  Generate auditor-ready reports and metrics for frameworks like PCI DSS, DORA, NIS2, and GDPR that show not just remediation activity but proof that critical risks have been eliminated.

These outcomes bring the Find → Fix → Verify Loop into full operational focus, bridging RBVM and FixOps through real, attacker-validated data.

A New Era of Accountability

“Today we’re closing a gap by giving defenders the upper hand and turning attackers’ own tactics against them,” said Snehal Antani, CEO and Co-Founder, Horizon3.ai. “Attackers have long focused on the weaknesses most likely to give them leverage. With these new RBVM enhancements, we’re enriching vulnerability management by arming security leaders with the proof to focus on what matters most.”

With NodeZero, accountability becomes real. Every test proves exploitability. Every fix can be verified. Every retest shows measurable progress. That is how security shifts from probability to proof.

Learn More

• Read the Press Release
• Building FixOps: Architectural Considerations for Autonomous Security Workflows
• Explore the NodeZero MCP Server