Cut through the noise - The power of context in managing cyber threats

Prioritising vulnerabilities with context has long been a challenge for cybersecurity teams, and it’s only getting harder as the number of published Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) continues to rise. As of mid-2024, more than 30,000 CVEs have already been published, and this surge shows no signs of slowing.

Cybersecurity teams in India and globally are overwhelmed by an ever-increasing flood of fragmented vulnerability and threat intelligence data. With new CVEs constantly emerging across components, frameworks, and libraries, organisations find it impossible to stay ahead of every threat. They’re chasing down and fixing each application that relies on vulnerable components, yet in reality, only 3% of vulnerabilities pose a significant risk to organisations.

Without clear direction on which vulnerabilities to remediate first, many enterprises invest in various intelligence tools and services, hoping to protect their environments. Yet, despite these efforts, attacks persist.

A Process and Technology Problem

Many organisations in India continue to rely on basic prioritisation methods—targeting specific products or relying on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). This approach may meet compliance standards or offer a measurable metric, but it falls short of addressing real-world risk. While a CVSS score provides a general sense of severity, it lacks the necessary context to determine how critical a vulnerability is to a specific organisation.

To effectively manage vulnerabilities, organisations need a new approach—one that enables them to prioritise based on actual risk. One of the key elements of any successful vulnerability management strategy is the ability to track performance. However, most organisations find their progress flatlined because the influx of new vulnerabilities cancels out the impact of remediated ones. By focusing on a more targeted set of vulnerabilities, teams can measure performance meaningfully over time and establish achievable service-level agreements (SLAs).

A New Approach to Vulnerability Management

Preventive security strategies offer organisations a way to better manage the thousands of vulnerabilities they face. One such strategy is using a Vulnerability Priority Rating (VPR), which outperforms CVSS in assessing risk. VPR provides a dynamic score that reflects the current threat landscape and rates how critical a vulnerability is to an organisation. The higher the VPR, the greater the likelihood of exploitation. By understanding the context and lifecycle of each vulnerability, VPR allows teams to prioritise remediation efforts more effectively.

In addition to VPR, solutions must offer insights into vulnerabilities associated with ransomware attacks—especially those affecting major enterprise applications. These high-risk vulnerabilities can lead to dangerous attacks if left unaddressed.

This context-driven approach ensures that security teams focus on vulnerabilities that truly matter, reducing the list from thousands to a manageable number that aligns with real-world risks.

The Path Forward

It’s no surprise that vulnerability prioritisation remains a major challenge for organisations. With the sheer volume of CVEs published each year, teams simply can’t keep up. The lack of contextual data makes prioritisation either a guessing game or an enormous task that often fails to meaningfully reduce risk.

To tackle this issue, Indian organisations must pivot to a strategy that centralises the necessary context, enabling them to operationalise a measurable and effective vulnerability management program. This approach not only improves risk reduction but also offers security teams a more sustainable workload.

By Rajnish Gupta, Managing Director and Country Manager, Tenable India