How Paramify Supports VDR & VER

FedRAMP's Vulnerability Detection and Response (VDR) and Vulnerability Evaluation and Reporting (VER) rules replace the legacy monthly-scan-and-POA&M process with continuous, risk-based vulnerability management. Under FedRAMP Public Notice NTC-0014, issued in response to CISA Binding Operational Directive 26-04, all cloud service offerings obtaining or maintaining FedRAMP Certification must adopt the VDR and VER rules by December 7, 2026. A grace period under a corrective action plan runs through March 7, 2027, after which FedRAMP Certification is revoked for offerings that are not compliant.

This article explains how Paramify approaches VDR and VER, and links to detailed guides for each part of the workflow.

Paramify's Role: the Data and Reporting Layer

Paramify does not replace your vulnerability scanners, and it does not replace your ticketing system. Your scanners (Tenable, Wiz, AWS Inspector, Qualys, and others) remain your detection tools, and your ticketing platform (Jira, ServiceNow, Linear) remains where your engineers work remediation. Paramify sits between them as the data and reporting layer that makes VDR compliance auditable and repeatable.

In this flow, Paramify:

• Ingests findings from your scanning tools, either by file export (CSV, JSON, and XML) or by pulling directly from tool APIs using evidence fetchers
• Combines findings with enrichment context such as the CISA KEV list and EPSS scores
• Serves as the system of record for Issues, tracking status, due dates, and SLA timeframes in one place across all sources
• Syncs tickets and updates with your ticketing platform so remediation happens in your team's existing workflow
• Generates the human-readable reports and FedRAMP machine-readable vulnerability JSONs required by VER
• Provides API access so agencies can programmatically retrieve vulnerability data

What Paramify Covers and What Remains Your Responsibility

VDR and VER compliance is a shared effort. Understanding the split up front avoids surprises during your assessment.

The Issues Feature at a Glance

Paramify Issues are the backbone of VDR and VER support:

• Issue types. Vulnerabilities, Configurations, Control findings, and Documentation findings are tracked as distinct types, so scanner CVEs, misconfigurations, and manual or penetration test findings stay organized in one system.
• Risk-based SLAs. Each Issue carries exploitability (LEV), internet reachability (IRV), and potential impact classifications that determine the required mitigation and remediation timeframe under the VDR rules.
• Excuses. False Positive, Operational Requirement, Risk Adjustment, and Vendor Dependency statuses document why an item is not remediated on the standard clock, and feed the accepted vulnerability reporting required by VER.
• Automation. Assessment cycles automatically create, update, and close Issues from incoming scan data using duplicate detection, so resolved vulnerabilities close without manual spreadsheet review.
• Validators. Validators monitor the health of the process itself, surfacing failed collections, stale data, or missed cadences, which supports demonstrating that detection is operating continuously.

Machine-readable Vulnerability Reporting

VER requires vulnerability activity to be available in the standard machine-readable formats published at fedramp.gov/schemas. Paramify assembles three of these directly from your Issues data:

These files are generated by Paramify fetchers on an ongoing basis and stored in evidence sets. Each report is validated against its official FedRAMP JSON schema before it is stored as evidence.

Key dates

Frequently Asked Questions

These are the questions assessors, agencies, and prospective customers ask most often about how Paramify handles the vulnerability lifecycle, from detection through evaluation, remediation, and acceptance.

Detection and Scan Ingestion

What data sources and logic drive Paramify's automated determinations?

Paramify ingests security data from vulnerability scanning tools, asset inventory systems, and threat intelligence feeds. Scanner signals support evaluation: for example, a Wiz flag indicating that an asset has wide internet exposure can be used to flag internet-reachable vulnerabilities (IRVs). Threat intelligence datasets such as the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog inform likely exploitable vulnerability (LEV) indicators so the most critical items are prioritized.

How customizable is scan ingestion?

Scan ingestion is fully customizable through file intake presets, which define how the fields in a scanner's output map to Paramify data.

 

Can users create custom ingestion mappings?

Yes, and custom ingestion mappings can be reused across workspaces.

 

Findings and Affected Assets

How are inventory records linked to findings?

Findings are mapped directly to the inventory assets where the vulnerabilities were detected. When a new scan confirms that an asset is no longer affected, the platform automatically removes that asset from the associated finding.

Can a finding be traced back to its associated assets?

Yes. Issues can be searched by asset name to find every finding associated with a given asset.

Finding Lifecycle and History

Remediation, Deviations, and Acceptance

Does Paramify support milestone tracking?

Yes.  Milestones are called Remediation Activities in Paramify.

 

How does Paramify handle different risk acceptance decisions for the same finding across multiple assets?

Multiple Excuses (Deviation Requests) can be created and applied to the same CVE, and different agencies can sign off on their own Excuse. The issue-to-asset relationship supports tracking the same finding across multiple assets with different acceptance decisions.

Can items accepted by a CSP, AO, or other approving authority be documented?

Yes. CSPs can designate Reviewers to capture internal review and acceptance, and an AO or other approving authority can accept individual issue records.

Can Paramify help manage vendor or package dependencies?

Yes. Vendor dependencies are captured as Excuses, and Vendor Dependency check-ins are documented within the related Remediation Activities. Users can receive notifications for assigned issues that have vendor dependencies, and the Jira integration can automatically create corresponding Jira issues.

 

Learn More

Detailed guides for each part of the workflow:

• Manage Vulnerability and Configuration Scans: running assessments and the scan intake workflow
• POA&M Management: tracking and exporting issue records
• Jira Integration: syncing Issues with your ticketing workflow
• Wiz Integration: Pulling Vulnerability Findings into Paramify: pulling findings directly from Wiz via the evidence fetcher
• Accessing Vulnerability Detection and Response Data in Paramify: retrieving VDR data from the platform