Ditch Vulnerability Scanners: A Smarter Approach to Exposure Management with runZero Alongside Endpoint Agents

A few weeks ago, we launched powerful new capabilities in runZero that mark a new era in exposure management. As part of that release, we took direct aim at overcoming long-standing challenges with vulnerability scanners.

Traditional vulnerability management platforms were designed for a world that no longer exists — and they stopped innovating a long time ago. They were introduced back when networks were static, assets stayed on-prem, and scans could reach everything. But today’s environments are anything but predictable and controllable.

Hybrid infrastructure, distributed workforces, edge devices, and IT/OT convergence have completely reshaped the attack surface. Vulnerability scanners haven’t kept up, producing overwhelming volumes of alerts while completely missing critical exposures that are highly exploitable.

So, what’s the move?

Ditch your vulnerability scanners. Leverage your endpoint agents for authenticated discovery. Use runZero for everything else.

This modern approach gives you better coverage, deeper visibility, and less operational overhead. It’s exposure management reimagined for today’s dynamic environments.

Legacy Scanners Are Falling Short #

Legacy vulnerability scanners were built for a different time — when networks had clear perimeters, assets were reachable, and credential-based scanning was feasible across the board.

That world doesn’t exist anymore.

Today, your environment is:

• Hybrid and constantly changing

• Remote-first, with endpoints scattered across the globe

• Full of unmanaged, unknown, and unscannable assets

• Populated with fringe devices at the network edge

The latter are precisely the types of assets most likely to be missed by agents and excluded from scheduled scans — yet they often present the highest risk.

Legacy scanners also tend to be disruptive to sensitive systems and prone to crashing things you don’t want to knock over. This renders them useless in OT environments and for things like IoT and unmanaged devices, yet these assets are frequently targeted by attackers. Plus, these tools are typically slow, delivering results well after windows of exploitability have opened.

So what now? Stick with what’s familiar and hope nothing slips through the cracks? Of course not. But ripping out your existing scanner and starting from scratch isn’t always realistic either — especially when your workflows and metrics are tied to vulnerability counts.

You Already Have Authenticated Vulnerability Data #

Here’s the irony: you already have a better source of authenticated vulnerability data. You may just not be using it.

If you’ve deployed endpoint detection and response (EDR) agents, then you may already have real-time, authenticated vulnerability data at your fingertips.

There’s no need for complex credential vaults, no limited scan windows, no waiting for point-in-time scan results. You’ve already got what you need. Why not use it?

But here’s the challenge — these tools give you vulnerability data without the network context. They tell you what’s wrong, but not whether those vulnerabilities are exposed or reachable by an attacker. That’s where runZero comes in to connect the dots, plus identify additional exposures that agent-based approaches still miss.

runZero Covers Everything Else #

Endpoint agents are powerful, but they can’t see everything.

runZero’s exposure management platform is purpose-built to find assets and risks traditional tools and endpoint agents can’t. We discover and fingerprint every device across your total attack surface including IT, OT, IoT, cloud, and mobile devices. We even find unmanageable, rogue, or entirely unknown assets that agents can’t touch.

Additionally, we highlight risks that other tools may report, but not at the appropriate severity level. For example, many vulnerability scanners detect unauthenticated “ZooKeeper” services, but report this as an information-vulnerability, not an exposure that can leak application secrets to an unauthenticated attacker.

Want to find protocols running on unusual ports, exposed remote access services, open databases with default credentials, segmentation violations, or devices improperly bridged across internal and external networks? runZero sees them.

We’re also leading the way in uncovering exploitable paths that never show up in external scans but pose massive internal risk. Learn more about our inside-out attack surface management capabilities.

runZero + Endpoint Agents: A Smarter, Integrated Approach #

Modern exposure management doesn’t need more tools — it needs a more effective approach.

runZero’s deep integrations with leading endpoint detection and response vendors enable you to:

• Enrich asset records with agent details, OS info, and operational state

• Ingest full software inventories

• Pull in authenticated vulnerability data direct from the agent

This data merges seamlessly with runZero’s unauthenticated discovery and fingerprinting to give you a complete, contextualized view of every asset in your attack surface and its exposures including which ones are reachable, misconfigured, or otherwise primed for compromise.

And yes — it checks the box for compliance, too.

See Endpoint Agent Vulnerability Data + runZero in Action #

Curious to see how it all comes together? Let’s take a closer look at what this looks like inside the runZero UI.

Next Steps #

It’s time to move away from legacy vulnerability management. There’s a smarter path forward — one that pairs the endpoint agents you already have with what you've been missing: runZero.

Ready to see for yourself? Try runZero free for 21 days.