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Cisco’s announcement of Cisco Vulnerability Management formerly Kenna Security reaching end of life is more than a product sunset. It marks the closing chapter of an entire generation of vulnerability and exposure management platforms.
Kenna helped the industry move beyond raw CVE lists into risk based prioritization. That was a critical step forward at the time. But the threat landscape has changed again and faster than most tools can keep up.
Key Cisco Kenna end of life milestones
- End of life announcement: December 10 2025
- Last day to order: March 10 2026
- Last day to renew or expand subscriptions: June 11 2026
- Final support date: June 30 2028
For organizations still relying on Kenna or similar platforms this creates urgency. But more importantly it creates an opportunity to evolve instead of simply replacing one legacy model with another.
The Industry Is Moving Past RBVM and Traditional Exposure Management
Most exposure management and RBVM platforms still operate on the same core assumption
Security teams identify risk then humans decide what to do next.
Even modern platforms stop at
- Normalizing findings
- Prioritizing vulnerabilities
- Opening tickets
- Managing workflows
That approach made sense when attack velocity was slower and environments were simpler.
Today attackers move autonomously. Exploitation chains are discovered and weaponized in hours. Cloud environments change continuously. Regulatory expectations demand proof of risk reduction not just prioritization.
Managing lists and workflows is no longer enough.
This is why many RBVM and traditional exposure management platforms will not survive the next few years. They are optimized for human speed in a world that now operates at machine speed.
The Shift to Agentic Exposure Management
The next evolution is not better scoring or nicer dashboards.
It is Agentic Exposure Management.
Agentic Exposure Management replaces human in the loop decision making with AI agents that can reason act and verify outcomes on their own.
Instead of asking analysts to interpret thousands of findings ZEST deploys AI agents that:
- Analyze vulnerabilities in full environmental context
- Determine real exploitation requirements
- Understand whether an attacker can actually reach the asset
- Evaluate identity permissions network paths and cloud configurations
- Eliminate non exploitable findings automatically
This is how organizations reduce vulnerability backlogs by up to ninety percent without human involvement.
Where Other Platforms Stop, ZEST Goes Beyond
Traditional exposure management platforms stop when a ticket is opened. ZEST starts there.
ZEST AI agents do not just prioritize risk. They actively drive it to resolution.
ZEST AI Agents go beyond workflows
- Simulate multiple remediation pathways before action is taken
- Calculate blast radius and operational impact of each remediation option
- Recommend the safest fastest path to eliminate exposure
- Trigger remediation actions or tickets only when necessary
- Continuously validate whether risk was actually removed
This is not automation for the sake of automation.
It is decision making at machine speed aligned with how modern attacks unfold.
While other tools create more tickets ZEST focuses on closing them.
Built for the Age of Autonomous Attacks and Regulation
Security teams are now facing two parallel pressures
- Autonomous AI driven attacks
- Increasing regulatory scrutiny that demands evidence of control effectiveness
ZEST was designed for both.
Agentic Exposure Management allows teams to demonstrate real continuous risk reduction not theoretical prioritization. Every action is validated. Every mitigation is measured. Every closed exposure is provable.
This is critical for frameworks like SOC 2 ISO 27001 NIST and emerging cloud security regulations.
Why Kenna Customers Are Choosing ZEST
Organizations moving off Kenna are not looking for another scoring engine. They are looking for relief from endless backlogs and reactive operations.
ZEST delivers that by design:
- AI native architecture purpose built for autonomy
- Massive backlog reduction without adding headcount
- Exposure elimination even when patching is not possible
- Seamless transition from prioritization to remediation to validation
- Speed that matches modern AI powered attackers
This is not the next version of vulnerability management.
It is the replacement.
Do Not Replace Kenna. Evolve Beyond It.
Kenna’s end of life is not a disruption. It is a signal.
The market is moving away from managing vulnerability data and toward autonomous exposure elimination.
Organizations that adopt Agentic Exposure Management will operate at attacker speed.
Those that do not will remain stuck managing queues and tickets while risk accumulates.
ZEST Security was built for what comes next.
Ready to move beyond traditional exposure management?
If you are planning your transition away from Kenna or reassessing your exposure management strategy now is the time to see what Agentic Exposure Management looks like in practice.
ZEST Security helps teams eliminate exposure at machine speed.
Visit zestsecurity.io and experience how AI agents transform vulnerability management into continuous risk elimination.
