Priority Scanning: Get Faster Visibility into Exposures Across your Attack Surface

Audio Recap

Security teams today face a widening visibility gap: while exposures appear daily, traditional scanning cycles take weeks to reflect them.

According to Bitsight Groma Explorer, the technology sector accounts for over 83% of all CVEs, with 40% occurring in the United States. But it's not just technology under fire. In 2024 alone, Bitsight TRACE identified 14.5 million leaked credit cards on the dark web, a 20% increase from 2023. Further, a 2023 TRACE research study revealed the education sector as the most frequently targeted by Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEVs), accounting for 54.3% of observed incidents. Notably, threat activity against education has shown no decline over the past two years, highlighting the sector’s persistent exposure to cyber risk.

These staggering figures make one thing clear: it’s no longer enough to focus solely on internal security. As organizations grow more digitally interconnected, vulnerabilities within third- and fourth-party vendors increasingly serve as attack vectors. A single gap in your extended ecosystem can lead to widespread compromise.

In today’s dynamic threat landscape — where phishing is now accompanied by smishing, quishing, and double-extortion ransomware — traditional scanning cycles are no longer sufficient. This is where Priority Scanning comes in. By delivering daily, automated insights into your external attack surface, including attributed vendor assets, Priority Scanning empowers security teams to detect exposures faster, validate remediations immediately, and adopt a more proactive, resilient third-party risk management strategy.

What is Priority Scanning?

A capability powered by Bitsight GROMA, Priority Scanning provides daily monitoring of your attributed assets, covering the most critical diligence risk vectors. This is huge! This ensures you do not miss an alert. 

Daily scans cover:

• SSL/TLS configurations: Detect weak or misconfigured SSL/TLS setups that could expose data in transit.
• SSL certificates: Identify expired or misissued certificates that break secure communication.
• Server software: Spot outdated or unsupported server software before attackers exploit known CVEs.
• Open ports: Find and close exposed entry points that expand your attack surface.
• Patching cadence: Verify that critical patches are applied quickly, reducing your vulnerability window.

Priority Scanning offers several key benefits that elevate an organization’s security posture. It provides fresh, daily data, allowing teams to identify new exposures and validate remediations within 24 hours. This enables faster, more informed risk decisions, grounded in the most accurate and up-to-date information available. Teams also benefit from immediate feedback, with remediated issues reflected in scan results as soon as the next day. Best of all, Priority Scanning runs seamlessly in the background, requiring no manual action or configuration, delivering continuous protection without adding operational burden.

Why Priority Scanning now

Assets across the internet take several days or weeks to be rescanned. That lag creates a window of opportunity for attackers and leaves organizations showing outdated results to executives, auditors, and customers.

With Priority Scanning, Bitsight closes that gap. Daily visibility means faster discovery of new exposures, quicker confirmation of remediations, and improved confidence in your external attack surface data.

Priority Scanning vs. rescan: Two tools, one goal

To manage exposure effectively, you need both broad, continuous visibility and targeted confirmation of fixes. That’s why Bitsight offers two complementary capabilities: Priority Scanning and Findings Rescans. 

Together, they help teams detect exposures sooner and validate remediations faster. 

So, what’s the difference, and how do they work together?

Rescan (part of Dynamic Remediation)

Rescan is a manual, targeted process that allows users to request a fresh evaluation of specific remediated findings, such as open ports, SSL misconfigurations, or outdated server software.

Findings Rescan is part of Bitsight’s Dynamic Remediation initiative, which makes Security Ratings more responsive by allowing on-demand verification of remediated findings. Recent improvements include:

• A redesigned UI to clearly show remediation outcomes
• Instant rescans for certain findings (coming soon)
• Rating credit when vulnerable assets are taken offline

Who benefits?

Primarily, Security Performance Management (SPM) users who need fast, transparent feedback on how their remediation efforts impact their Bitsight Rating.

It’s also highly valuable in third-party risk management contexts. Imagine a customer identifying a critical exposure in your environment and requesting urgent remediation. Even after you’ve fixed it, traditional scan cycles could take weeks to confirm the change, creating unnecessary friction between first- and third-parties.

With Dynamic Remediation, fixes can be verified and reflected much sooner, reducing uncertainty, building trust, and strengthening collaboration across the ecosystem.

Priority Scanning (part of External Attack Surface Management)

Priority Scanning is continuous, automated, and proactive. It runs daily across your entire attributed attack surface, no manual action required.

It’s designed to surface new, high-risk exposures as soon as they appear, allowing security teams to respond before attackers can exploit them.

Who benefits?

External Attack Surface Management (EASM) users who need continuous, automated visibility into their exposure landscape.

Security teams responsible for monitoring large, dynamic environments, including third- and fourth-party assets, benefit from daily scans that surface new exposures as soon as they appear.

Priority Scanning helps reduce the time attackers could exploit new vulnerabilities and gives organizations faster insight into their external risk posture.

Why you need both

Together, Rescan and Priority Scanning offer a dual-layered approach:

• Rescan = Validation — Verify if your specific remediation efforts have been recognized and reflected in your Bitsight Rating.
• Priority Scanning = Detection — Stay ahead of emerging threats with continuous visibility into your most exposed and risky assets.

Both are powered by Bitsight Groma, our next-gen scanning technology delivering real-time visibility and global reach.

​​While Rescan confirms that remediations are recognized, Priority Scanning ensures you’re always aware of new exposures across your environment.

Impact on Risk & Ratings

• More timely findings: Issues may appear earlier, but this enables quicker remediation.
• Faster recognition of fixes: Your remediation efforts are credited faster, improving your risk posture.

Customer impact example

In a recent study, an EASM customer shared:

"Priority scans help us continuously monitor our external attack surface and take action on threats faster."

For executives, auditors, and customers alike, faster visibility means higher confidence in remediation effectiveness and overall security posture.

Included and optional

• Included with: Security Performance Management (SPM) EASM Enhanced module.
• Opt-Out Available: But you'll return to slower scan cycles and delayed remediation recognition.

Whether you're scanning your own environment or monitoring the vulnerabilities of your third-party vendors, staying ahead of today’s constantly evolving threat landscape is critical. Priority Scanning empowers organizations with real-time visibility into emerging risks, ensuring you’re not reacting to yesterday’s threats, but proactively managing tomorrow’s.

Priority Scanning helps you close the exposure gap, maintain confidence in your attack surface data, and demonstrate measurable progress every day.

See how faster visibility can improve your security outcomes. Request a demo of Bitsight EASM.