One recurring challenge in many organizations is the lack of clear ownership for security issues.
Multiple business units may generate hundreds of critical findings each. Without accountability at the business-unit level, the central security team often ends up carrying the entire burden. That doesn’t scale. Security teams should act as enablers and advisors, but the actual responsibility of remediation must sit with the business units that own the assets.
Observations
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Absence of Defined Business Ownership:
Many organizations lack clearly designated business-side ownership for security issues. When multiple business units each generate large numbers of critical findings, the responsibility often defaults to a small central security or risk team — which is rarely sustainable.
Without clear accountability, misconfigurations and vulnerabilities tend to remain unresolved. Business units should be responsible for the security posture of their own assets, with the security team serving as an enabler and advisor rather than the sole owner of remediation efforts. -
High Volume of Findings from Security Tools:
Security posture management tools such as Tenable, Qualys, or Microsoft Defender for Cloud often generate a significant volume of findings across environments.- Accountability: It is often unclear which business units or stakeholders are responsible for ensuring these issues are addressed.
- Remediation Ownership: In many cases, there is no defined process or assigned personnel accountable for remediating or mitigating identified vulnerabilities.
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Applications Without Assigned Owners:
Some applications lack designated ownership. When security findings arise for such systems, there is no defined point of contact for remediation activities.
This gap can lead to delays, unresolved vulnerabilities, and prolonged exposure to security risks.
The Real Problem
Security tools are great at surfacing issues but then the real questions start:
- Who owns these findings?
- Who ensures they are tracked and resolved?
- Who is actually responsible for fixing them?
Without clear answers, organizations risk creating a backlog of vulnerabilities that nobody feels accountable for.
There’s also the problem of applications with no owners. When findings emerge for such systems, there’s no point of contact to engage for remediation. This leads to delays, unresolved risks, and in the worst cases, critical exposures staying open.
How To Tackle It
- Assign ownership at the business level - each unit must be accountable for its own security posture.
- Define a clear remediation process - from detection → assignment → remediation → validation.
- Mandate application ownership - every system must have an accountable owner on record.
Key Takeaway
Security works best when accountability is distributed, not centralized. A small security team cannot (and should not) be the only one responsible for fixing everything, the business must own its risks.