After years of government cyber trouble, UK turns to automated scanning to speed fixes

The UK government announced its Vulnerability Monitoring Service, a central platform scanning internet-facing systems across about 6,000 public bodies, is cutting median remediation times for critical domain issues from ~50 to 8 days and other vulnerabilities from 53 to 32 days, while reducing the backlog of critical flaws by roughly three-quarters. The service processes around 400 confirmed vulnerabilities monthly, though officials did not disclose exploitation rates or absolute vulnerability counts. This push follows acknowledgments of past shortcomings and occurs amid rapidly escalating cyber threats and persistent reliance on legacy technology across government.