Zero-day vulnerabilities are among the greatest threats to software. These vulnerabilities are software flaws that are exploited before patches become available, and once a zero-day vulnerability is made known, cyberattackers will often strike within hours.
IT teams must be able to detect, prioritize, and patch vulnerabilities quickly before attackers can exploit them. But traditional patching tools just can’t respond fast enough.
Businesses need real-time threat detection and patch automation. With real-time automation from Splashtop AEM (Autonomous Endpoint Management), IT teams can quickly identify exposed endpoints and deploy patches as soon as fixes or mitigation guidance are available, shrinking the window attackers can exploit.
Why Zero-Day Vulnerabilities Are So Dangerous
Zero-day vulnerabilities follow a standard lifecycle: discovery, exploitation, disclosure, patching, and remediation. However, because exploitation occurs before disclosure and patching, this creates a large window of opportunity for attackers to exploit the vulnerability.
The longer it takes to patch a vulnerability, the greater the likelihood of a breach. However, even after a patch is released, many endpoints may remain unpatched for long periods, leaving them at risk. This is especially challenging in remote or hybrid environments, as well as for companies with Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) policies, where managing patches across remote endpoints can be difficult.
The Common Barriers to Rapid Zero-Day Response
Despite the threat posed by zero-day vulnerabilities, patching them promptly is often easier said than done. Several obstacles can make prompt patching a greater challenge than it should be, including:
Delayed patch cycles: Without real-time patching, tools like Intune or SCCM operate on fixed sync schedules and can take up to eight hours to check for new patches. That can leave devices exposed for far longer than is safe.
Manual triage: A lack of automation means IT teams must manually review advisories and CVE bulletins, making it easy to miss newly discovered vulnerabilities or recent patches.
Limited visibility: Without a unified data source, it can be hard to identify which devices are vulnerable. This makes it easy to overlook at-risk endpoints.
No automation: Without automation tools, patches require human approval or script-based intervention, which can delay approval and deployment.
Any of these can result in a wide window between CVE disclosure and actual protection, which gives cyberattackers ample opportunity to exploit the vulnerabilities.
How Splashtop AEM Accelerates Zero-Day Remediation
Fortunately, you can address zero-day vulnerabilities quickly with the right technology. Splashtop AEM is a robust, user-friendly solution that provides real-time patching and vulnerability management across endpoints and distributed environments, empowering IT teams to protect all their endpoints from zero-day vulnerabilities.
With Splashtop AEM, organizations can identify which endpoints are affected and deploy patches in real time, ensuring critical updates are rolled out across devices as soon as they become available. This minimizes the time it takes to update devices, apps, and operating systems, so devices aren’t left exposed. It also works across platforms, including Windows, macOS, and third-party software and applications.
Splashtop AEM uses built-in intelligence and CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) insights to identify known vulnerabilities and their severity scores, enabling IT teams to prioritize the most significant threats. Administrators can also set rules for automated patching based on company policy, compliance requirements, and CVE scores to automatically patch the highest-risk vulnerabilities first.
Plus, Splashtop AEM provides complete visibility into systems with automatic inventory and reporting. This helps IT teams identify which systems are vulnerable, patched, or awaiting remediation, and offers clear records for IT compliance audits.
Step-by-Step: How to Identify and Remediate Zero-Days Fast
So, how does Splashtop AEM help address zero-day vulnerabilities? You can use Splashtop AEM to protect endpoints from known and new vulnerabilities by following a few simple steps:
Monitor CVE Feeds and AEM’s Vulnerability Insights: Splashtop AEM’s CVE insights and vulnerability views identify which endpoints are affected by known vulnerabilities, so IT teams are always aware of the threats they currently face.
Assess Severity and Exploitability: Administrators can set policies to automatically prioritize vulnerabilities based on CVSS score, public disclosure, and exploit data, or assess the threats themselves.
Apply Emergency Patch Policies: When a vulnerability is detected, predefined patching policies can deploy patches to affected endpoints in real time.
Verify and Report Compliance: Once the patches are deployed, IT teams can confirm successful remediation in Splashtop AEM’s dashboard and generate audit reports.
Automate for Future Zero-Days: Admins can configure ongoing automation for high-severity CVEs to ensure immediate response to any future issues that may arise.
Why Traditional Tools Fall Short
While Splashtop AEM is a powerful tool for real-time patch management and endpoint protection, many organizations have already invested in other patch management tools. However, traditional tools often lack the speed, flexibility, and reliability to protect every endpoint adequately.
Some tools, like Intune and SCCM, rely on slower sync schedules rather than real-time updates. This means there are often long gaps between a patch’s release and its installation, leaving endpoints vulnerable. Splashtop AEM’s real-time patching eliminates these delays, keeping endpoints reliably up to date, and it can sit alongside tools like Intune to fill gaps in real-time patching and cross-platform patch coverage.
Some organizations may rely on manual tools, such as scripts and spreadsheets. Those, however, can’t scale for fast response across distributed endpoints, and are prone to human error.
Additionally, many solutions are designed for specific operating systems and lack either cross-platform compatibility or support for third-party software patches. As a result, those solutions are incomplete and leave common attack vectors exposed.
In today’s business environment, where remote and hybrid work are commonplace, and employees can use a wide array of devices and applications, it’s more important than ever to use an automated, cross-platform solution that can manage remote endpoints across a company’s network.
Integrating Zero-Day Remediation into Security and Compliance
Zero-day remediation is essential for maintaining security and regulatory compliance. However, if you have an audit approaching, you still need to demonstrate that you’re meeting your cybersecurity requirements, such as SOC, PCI, and ISO 27001.
Splashtop AEM is designed to help organizations satisfy patching and visibility requirements in a wide array of security frameworks and to demonstrate that posture with audit-ready reports. IT teams can generate reports showing patch statuses and CVE information, providing clear, detailed information on how they’re keeping devices protected and updated with Splashtop AEM to meet their regulatory requirements.
Additionally, Splashtop AEM can help companies maintain network security. Preventing unpatched and unverified devices from connecting is part of Zero-Trust Security strategies, and Splashtop AEM can help ensure each endpoint is properly up to date and provide visibility into patch statuses.
Real-World Example: A Zero-Day Response Scenario
Zero-day vulnerabilities leave networks and devices prone to attack, and they’re far more common than many would expect.
For instance, Google recently released an emergency security update for a Chrome zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2025-13223) that targeted Chrome’s V8 JavaScript engine, and hackers used a zero-day vulnerability to install spyware on Samsung smartphones. Threats like those can jeopardize entire businesses, so organizations and IT teams should know how to respond to them.
So, let ’s examine how Splashtop AEM would work in a scenario like that. For instance, if a critical zero-day vulnerability is discovered in Google Chrome, Splashtop AEM would receive CVE data on the vulnerability and instantly flag affected devices.
As soon as the patch for the vulnerability is available, the admin can apply policy-based patching to roll out the security update to all devices in minutes. Once the patch is deployed, IT agents can use the Splashtop AEM dashboard to confirm remediation across endpoints and create compliance logs to verify that all devices are patched.
As a result, the company can minimize risks and maintain IT compliance, all while saving time and reducing the manual work typically required for patch deployment.
Key Outcomes of Using Splashtop AEM for Zero-Days
So, what are the results of using Splashtop AEM to manage zero-day vulnerabilities? Splashtop AEM can provide:
Faster patch-to-protection time.
Unified visibility across devices, including vulnerability and patch status.
Continuous compliance with automated CVE tracking.
Reduced manual workload and fewer human errors.
Improved security posture and customer trust.
When companies need to manage patches and security across remote and hybrid work environments, there’s one clear choice. Splashtop AEM provides the security, speed, and insights businesses need to address zero-day vulnerabilities and protect their endpoints.
Respond Faster, Stay Secure
Zero-day vulnerabilities can’t wait. Manual patch deployment and delayed patch cycles can leave devices exposed to attack, so automated, real-time patch management is essential for protecting devices.
Splashtop AEM provides automated, proactive patch management, deploying updates across endpoints as soon as they are approved and available under your policies. Its combination of automation and real-time visibility delivers faster protection and stronger security compliance, helping organizations improve security and defend against zero-day vulnerabilities as quickly as possible.
Ready to accelerate your zero-day response strategy? Try Splashtop AEM with a free trial and see how easy it is.
