According to 1, vulnerabilities are weaknesses that can be exploited by attackers to compromise the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of data or systems. Vulnerabilities can exist at various levels of a data center environment, such as applications, operating systems, networks, devices, and physical infrastructure.

One of the ways to manage vulnerabilities in a data center environment is to minimize the attack surfaces and maximize the work factors1. This means that you should reduce the number of entry points and exposure areas that an attacker can exploit (attack surfaces) and increase the amount of effort and resources that an attacker needs to overcome your defenses (work factors). This can be achieved by applying various security measures such as patching, hardening, encryption, authentication, authorization, monitoring, auditing, and testing.