Ethical Hacking News
The Vulnerability Treadmill: A Critical Examination of the Current State of Vulnerability Intelligence and Management
The CVE system has limitations and shortcomings, including a backlog of unenriched vulnerabilities and biases and inconsistencies. China's CNNVD database offers a valuable technical resource for organizations, but international cooperation is hindered by political barriers. Security teams face significant burdens due to the sheer volume of vulnerabilities being reported and tracked, with over 10,000 high-risk vulnerabilities identified. Organizations must prioritize their efforts and focus on critical vulnerabilities using tools like EPSS. Rethinking vulnerability management is essential, focusing on proactive measures such as identifying unmanaged systems, limiting impact, and improving baseline configurations.
The world of cybersecurity is a complex and ever-evolving landscape, with new threats and vulnerabilities emerging at an unprecedented rate. The Common Vulnerability Enumeration (CVE) program, overseen by the United States government-funded organizations such as MITRE and NIST's National Vulnerability Database (NVD), has become the gold standard for tracking and rating vulnerabilities. However, despite its widespread adoption, the CVE system is not without its limitations and shortcomings.
One of the primary criticisms leveled against the CVE system is that it relies heavily on voluntary reporting from organizations and researchers, which can lead to a significant backlog of unenriched CVEs. According to recent data, over 24,000 unenriched CVEs have accumulated at the NVD due to bureaucratic delays in March 2024, resulting in a significant disruption to the CVE enrichment process.
Furthermore, the CVE system is not without its biases and inconsistencies. The reliance on initial CVSS assessments by Numbering Authorities (CNAs) can introduce errors and inaccuracies, which can have far-reaching consequences for organizations relying on the system for vulnerability management. For instance, studies have shown that only a mere 6% of vulnerabilities in the CVE dictionary have ever been exploited, highlighting the need for more effective risk assessment and prioritization tools.
In recent years, China has operated its own vulnerability database, CNNVD, which offers a valuable technical resource for organizations seeking to improve their vulnerability management capabilities. However, due to political barriers, collaboration between Chinese and Western organizations remains elusive. This highlights the importance of developing alternative sources of vulnerability intelligence and management capabilities that are not reliant on international cooperation.
In addition to these challenges, the sheer volume of vulnerabilities being reported and tracked by CVE system has created a significant burden for security teams. A recent analysis by the Vulnerability Operation Center (VOC) dataset identified 1,337,797 unique findings across 68,500 unique customer assets, with 32,585 distinct CVEs having a CVSS score of 8 or higher. This represents a staggering 10,014 vulnerabilities that pose a high risk to organizations and can be exploited by threat actors.
To mitigate this issue, security teams are being forced to prioritize their efforts and focus on the most critical vulnerabilities first. The Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS), developed by the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) SIG, helps predict the likelihood of a vulnerability being exploited in the wild. However, even with such tools, the task of prioritizing vulnerabilities remains a daunting one.
In light of these challenges, it is essential that organizations rethink their approach to vulnerability management and adopt more proactive and strategic measures to reduce the attack surface. This can be achieved by identifying and removing unmanaged or unnecessary internet-facing systems, limiting the impact of attackers by segmenting assets at all levels, and improving the baseline by systematically reducing the number and severity of vulnerabilities.
Furthermore, organizations must focus on designing and implementing resilient architectures and baseline configurations that are more resistant to exploitation. By separating Threat Mitigation from Risk Reduction, organizations can break free from the constant cycle of reacting to specific threats and focus on more efficient, strategic approaches that minimize vulnerability impact while giving management teams flexibility in crisis response.
The overwhelming barrage of randomly discovered and reported vulnerabilities is stressing our people, processes, and technology. It's time for us to reimagine how we design, build, and maintain systems, with a focus on threat-informed decision making, human factors, leverage, and system architecture and design that incorporates threat modeling and simulation.
In conclusion, the vulnerability treadmill is a critical issue that requires immediate attention from organizations and security teams. By adopting proactive measures such as identifying and removing unmanaged systems, limiting impact, improving baseline configurations, and focusing on strategic vulnerability management, we can break free from the constant cycle of reacting to specific threats and focus on more efficient, effective approaches that minimize vulnerability impact.
Related Information:
https://www.ethicalhackingnews.com/articles/The-Vulnerability-Treadmill-A-Critical-Examination-of-the-Current-State-of-Vulnerability-Intelligence-and-Management-ehn.shtml
https://thehackernews.com/2025/05/beyond-vulnerability-management-cves.html
https://www.hendryadrian.com/beyond-vulnerability-management-can-you-cve-what-i-cve/
Published: Fri May 9 09:14:09 2025 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M
