CVE and CVSS are some of the most commonly misunderstood features of patching. In this article, we will explore the differences and showcase how they can affect your patching technique. Although many IT managers are familiar with these terms CVE and CVSS, some IT professionals still don’t understand the difference between them. CVE and CVSS are synonymous with software vulnerabilities, patching and operating systems. 

Vulnerability Management Best Practices

The Need for Effective Vulnerability Management

We aim to make our users familiar with the best practices of Vulnerability Management, and more specifically, how one can go about managing its environment.

More computers, more software, and faster development cycles lead to more vulnerabilities. The security and IT teams are put under immense pressure to tackle the growing number of vulnerabilities with the same old tools that can’t keep up with the requirements.

Vulnerability prioritization is a key aspect of vulnerability remediation and threat tracking. It allows companies to strategize their mitigation paths for security weaknesses based on the criticality of cyber risk with the right organizational context.

Breaking Down the CVSS

Vulnerabilities vary across the board in exploitability, risk, and threat. CVSS is a free and open set of metrics used to score the potential severity of IT vulnerabilities. It designates each vulnerability with a numerical severity rating between 0.0 and 10.0, with the number increasing along with the severity.

The First Step in Cybersecurity and Software Vulnerability Remediation

As we examined in our previous article “Predicting Vulnerabilities in Compiled Code”, there are over 1,000 vulnerabilities that are discovered every month. Hackers find a way to exploit these vulnerabilities, and the amount of monetary damage resulting from cyber crime keeps growing.

“Patch Tuesday” is a term widely used between IT and security teams to describe the time when Microsoft releases the latest updates. The ones who participate in it know the true cost of the patching cycle, whether it’s getting the approval, designing the plan, or dealing with the outcome.

Prognosis: Vulnerability Proliferation

With the increase of software usage worldwide, it’s only natural that a growing number of vulnerabilities will be discovered.

1999 was the inflection point for vulnerability listings. Prior to that, a variety of security tools offered different ways to categorize software security issues. As there was no standardized protocol for listing a vulnerability, inconsistencies were inevitable. In that year, the concept of common vulnerability and exposure (CVE) was introduced as a standard to represent software security flaws.