Why Security Fixes Take 30+ Days (And How to Make it 30 Minutes)

The bottom line: Critical web application vulnerabilities take 35-60 days to remediate on average, but the actual coding takes just 4 hours. The other 30+ days? Process overhead, context switching, and waiting. Automation can cut this to 30 minutes.

Industry research consistently shows the same depressing pattern across organizations.

Let’s walk through the tragicomedy that is modern security remediation.

The 30-Day Comedy of Errors

Day 1: Scanner screams “SQL INJECTION! THE WORLD IS ENDING!”

Day 2-5: Security team is drowning in 200 other alerts

Day 6: Someone finally creates a Jira ticket (low priority, naturally)

Day 7-20: Ticket enjoys a relaxing vacation in the backlog

Day 21: Dev picks it up: “Which of our 47 database queries is this?”

Day 21.5: Traces through 3 layers of abstraction to find the actual code

Day 22: “Wait, this is using the legacy ORM from 2019”

Day 23: Finally finds the query, fixes it with prepared statements in 2 hours

Day 24: Code reviewer: “Can you add tests?”

Day 25: Tests break everything

Day 26: Fix the fix that fixed the fix

Day 27: Code deployed to staging

Day 30: Finally deployed to production 🎉

Four hours of work. Thirty days of process.

Think I’m exaggerating? The Edgescan 2024 Vulnerability Statistics Report found the mean time to remediate critical web application vulnerabilities is 35 days¹. The Verizon 2024 DBIR shows it takes organizations around 55 days to remediate 50% of critical vulnerabilities after patches are available². For perspective, CISA recommends critical vulnerabilities be remediated within 15 days³, but most organizations struggle to meet this target. Meanwhile, Google’s Project Zero gives vendors 90 days before public disclosure⁴, acknowledging the reality of patch timelines.

Why Everything Takes Forever

Your Security Team Is Drowning

Picture this: 3 security engineers. 100+ vulnerabilities per week. Do the math.

According to GitLab’s 2024 Global DevSecOps Report⁵, security remains one of the top challenges for development teams. No kidding—when each vuln requires:

• Triage (is this real or noise?)
• Research (what’s the actual risk?)
• Assignment (who owns this code?)
• Context (which specific endpoint/query/component?)

Your security team isn’t slow. They’re buried.

The Context-Switching Nightmare

Here’s what happens when a developer finally gets that security ticket:

10:00 AM: Deep in feature work
10:01 AM: "Ugh, security ticket"
10:10 AM: Finally find a stopping point
10:30 AM: "Which endpoint is this vulnerability in?"
10:45 AM: "Great, it's in the deprecated API we're migrating"
11:30 AM: "Found it - legacy query builder needs parameterization"
1:30 PM: Fix implemented
2:30 PM: PR submitted
3:00 PM: Back to feature work
3:23 PM: Finally remember what I was doing

Research from UC Irvine shows it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to fully refocus after an interruption⁶. That’s not counting the emotional toll of being yanked out of flow state.

The Handoff Hell

Every security fix is a relay race where everyone drops the baton:

• Security → Dev: “Here’s a vulnerability” waits 3 days for response
• Dev → Security: “Which specific query is vulnerable?” waits 2 days for details
• Dev → Reviewer: “Please review” waits 1 day
• Reviewer → Dev: “Needs tests” waits 1 day
• Dev → QA: “Please test” waits 2 days
• QA → DevOps: “Ready to deploy” waits for next release window

Each handoff = more waiting. More waiting = more context lost.

The Sprint Planning Disaster

Here’s my favorite corporate comedy: A critical vulnerability discovered on Monday destroys your roadmap either way.

Option A: “We don’t interrupt sprints”

Week 1: Discovery & Triage Theater

• Monday: Scanner finds SQL injection, Slack thread explodes
• Tuesday: 2-hour meeting to assess severity (it’s critical)
• Wednesday: Document it, create ticket, assign to backlog
• Thursday: Three different people ask “is this fixed yet?”
• Friday: Add it to risk register, explain why it’s not fixed
• Hidden cost: 8 person-hours just deciding NOT to fix it

Week 2: The Waiting Game

• Sprint planning: 45-minute debate on priority
• “It’s critical but not customer-facing”
• “But it’s in the API that’s sometimes customer-facing”
• Compromise: Add to “next sprint (maybe)”
• Daily standups: “Still waiting on that SQL injection fix”
• Hidden cost: Team morale sinks, security becomes “their problem”

Week 3: Multiplication Effect

• New feature copies the vulnerable pattern
• Different team asks “is this query style okay?”
• Security: “Well, no, but we haven’t fixed ours either”
• Now it’s 3 instances across 2 codebases
• Pentest contractor finds it, charges hourly to document what you already knew
• Hidden cost: Vulnerability spreading, audit fees climbing

Week 4: Forced Interrupt Anyway

• Customer security review asks about SQL injection controls
• Sales: “This is blocking a $200k deal”
• Emergency fix needed by Friday
• Pull 3 devs mid-sprint (there goes the roadmap)
• Rush job = sketchy fix + no tests
• Total cost: 6 weeks of meetings + rushed fix + blown sprint

Option B: “Drop everything!”

• Monday: Dev sees critical vulnerability, stops feature work
• Tuesday: Two more devs self-assign to help “real quick”
• Wednesday: Manager discovers half the team is AWOL from planned work
• Thursday: “Why didn’t you tell me?” / “But it was critical!”
• Friday: Nobody knows what anyone’s actually working on
• Next Week: Try to piece together what happened to the roadmap

Security vulnerabilities don’t care about your planning cycles. And now, neither can you.

From 30 Days to 30 Minutes

What if security fixes worked like this instead:

9:00 AM: Scanner finds vulnerability

9:01 AM: Bot starts working

9:05 AM: PR appears: “Fix SQL injection in api/v2/users/search endpoint”

• Includes failing test showing the vulnerability
• Applies fix
• Test now passes
• All existing tests still green

9:10 AM: You review: “Good catch on the edge case, fix looks right”

9:15 AM: “Actually, we should also update the similar query in the admin endpoint”

9:20 AM: Bot updates PR with additional fix

9:25 AM: Merge

9:45 AM: Deployed

Sure, you still context switch for the review. But it’s 15 minutes, not 15 days. And even when the bot doesn’t nail it first try, you’re iterating on a concrete fix, not starting from scratch.

This Changes Everything

When fixes arrive as PRs instead of tickets, magic happens:

Old way:

• Stop what you’re doing
• Figure out the problem
• Research the solution
• Implement from scratch
• Argue in code review
• Total agony: 6 hours

New way:

• Notification: “Security PR needs review”
• Quick look: “Yeah, that parameterizes the query”
• Click merge
• Back to work
• Total time: 10 minutes

You never left your flow state. The fix just… happened.

The Ripple Effects

Stripe’s Developer Coefficient report found developers spend 42% of their time on technical debt and maintenance⁷. Want to know the worst part? Happy developers become grumpy security fixers.

When you cut fix time from 30 days to 30 minutes:

Developers stay happy: No more context-switching torture

Security actually improves: Fixes deploy while they’re still simple

Products ship faster: That’s 6 hours per fix back in your pocket

Everyone sleeps better: Including your CISO

The Path Forward

Here’s how to escape the 30-day nightmare:

Step 1: Time your current process (prepare for depression)

Step 2: Count the handoffs (each one adds days)

Step 3: Try automating just one vulnerability type

Step 4: Watch developers actually smile during security work

The tech exists. The ROI is proven. The only question is: How many more 30-day cycles will you accept?

Every vulnerability you defer today becomes tomorrow’s emergency interrupt. Except tomorrow, it’ll have friends.

RSOLV automatically generates security fixes as reviewable PRs, eliminating the 30-day wait. Developers review and merge in minutes, not days. See how it works →

References