Leveraging CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities: Why attack surface vulnerability validation is your strongest defense 

With over 20,000 Frequent Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) being revealed annually¹, the problem of discovering and fixing software program with recognized vulnerabilities continues to stretch vulnerability administration groups skinny. These groups are given the unimaginable job of driving down danger by patching software program throughout their group, with the hope that their efforts will assist to forestall a cybersecurity breach. As a result of it’s unimaginable to patch all methods, most groups deal with remediating vulnerabilities that rating extremely within the Frequent Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS)—a standardized and repeatable scoring system that ranks reported vulnerabilities from most to least important.  

Nonetheless, how do these organizations know that specializing in software program with the very best scoring CVEs is the suitable strategy? Whereas it’s good to have the ability to report back to executives concerning the quantity or share of important severity CVEs which were patched, does that metric truly inform us something concerning the improved resiliency of their group? Does decreasing the variety of important CVEs considerably cut back the chance of a breach? The reply is that, in concept, the group is decreasing the chance of a breach—however, in follow, it’s unimaginable to know for positive.  

CISA Recognized Exploited Vulnerabilities to strengthen cybersecurity resilience 

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company’s (CISA) Recognized Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) program was fashioned because of the will to shift efforts away from specializing in theoretical danger and towards decreasing breaches. CISA strongly advises that organizations ought to commonly overview and monitor the Recognized Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog and prioritize remediation.² By sustaining an up to date listing, CISA goals to supply an “authoritative supply of vulnerabilities which were exploited within the wild” and empower organizations to mitigate potential dangers successfully with the intention to keep one step forward within the battle towards cyberattacks. 

CISA has managed to seek out needles in a haystack by narrowing the listing of CVEs that safety groups ought to deal with remediating, down from tens-of-thousands to simply over 1,000 by specializing in vulnerabilities that:  

• Have been assigned a CVE ID
• Have been actively exploited within the wild
• Have a transparent remediation motion, resembling a vendor-provided replace

This discount in scope permits overwhelmed vulnerability administration groups to deeply consider software program operating of their setting that has been reported to include actively exploitable vulnerabilities as a result of they’re confirmed assault vectors—and subsequently, the most probably sources of a breach.  

Shifting from conventional vulnerability administration to danger prioritization 

With a smaller listing of vulnerabilities from CISA KEV driving their workflows, it has been noticed that safety groups are spending much less time on patching software program (a laborious and low-value exercise) and extra time understanding their group’s resiliency towards these confirmed assault vectors. In reality, many vulnerability administration groups have swapped patching for testing to find out if:  

• These vulnerabilities from CISA KEV will be exploited in software program of their setting.
• The compensating controls they’ve put in place are efficient at detecting and blocking breaches. This permits groups to know the true danger going through their group whereas concurrently assessing if the investments they’ve made in safety protection options are worthwhile. 

This shift towards testing the exploitability of vulnerabilities from the CISA KEV catalog is an indication that organizations are maturing from conventional vulnerability administration applications into Steady Menace Publicity Administration (CTEM)—a time period coined by Gartner—applications which “floor and actively prioritize no matter most threatens your enterprise.” This deal with validated danger as an alternative of theoretical danger signifies that groups are buying new abilities and new options to assist assist the execution of exploits throughout their group.   

The significance of ASM in gathering steady vulnerability intelligence   

An assault floor administration (ASM) resolution gives a complete view of a corporation’s assault floor and helps you make clear your cyber danger with steady asset discovery and danger prioritization. 

Steady testing, a key pillar of CTEM, states that applications should “validate how assaults may work and the way methods may react” with a objective of making certain that safety sources are focusing their time and power on the threats that matter most. In reality, Gartner asserts that “organizations that prioritize based mostly on a steady risk publicity administration program might be thrice much less more likely to endure a breach.”³ 

Maturing our cybersecurity protection mindset to CTEM applications represents a big enchancment over conventional vulnerability administration applications as a result of it will get defenders tackling the problems which might be most probably to result in a breach. And stopping breaches needs to be the objective as a result of the common value of a breach retains rising. The prices elevated by 15% during the last three years to USD 4.45 million in response to the Cost of a Data Breach report by IBM. So, as certified sources proceed to be laborious to seek out and safety budgets turn into tighter, think about giving your groups a narrower focus, resembling vulnerabilities within the CISA KEV, after which arm them with instruments to validate exploitability and assess the resiliency of your cybersecurity defenses. 

Verifying exploitable vulnerabilities with the IBM Safety Randori 

IBM Safety® Randori is an assault floor administration resolution that’s designed to uncover your exterior exposures by way of the lens of an adversary. It performs steady vulnerability validation throughout a corporation’s exterior assault floor and experiences on any vulnerabilities that may be exploited.

In December 2019, Armellini Logistics was the goal of a classy ransomware assault. Whereas the corporate shortly and efficiently recovered from the assault, it was decided to undertake a extra proactive strategy to prevention shifting ahead. With Randori Recon, Armellini has been capable of achieve deeper visibility into exterior danger and be certain that the corporate’s asset and vulnerability administration methods are up to date as new cloud and SaaS functions come on-line. More and more, Armellini has been utilizing Randori Recon’s goal temptation evaluation to triage and prioritize which vulnerabilities to patch. With this perception, the Armellini crew has helped to scale back the corporate’s danger with out impacting enterprise operations. 

The vulnerability validation characteristic goes past typical vulnerability administration instruments and applications by verifying the exploitability of a CVE, resembling CVE-2023-7992, a zero-day vulnerability in Zyxel NAS devices that was found and reported by the IBM X-Power Utilized Analysis crew. This verification helps cut back noise and permits clients to behave on actual—not theoretical—dangers and decide if mitigation or remediation efforts have been profitable by re-testing.  

Get began with IBM Safety Randori 

You may get a free, 7-day trial of IBM Safety Randori, or request a live demo to overview your assault floor.

Learn more about IBM Security Randori Recon 

1 Published CVE Records.

2 Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog.

3 Panetta, Kasey (2023, August 21), How to Manage Cybersecurity Threats, Not Episodes.