Latest news with #CommonVulnerabilityScoringSystem
Channel Post MEA
28-07-2025
- Business
- Channel Post MEA
Tenable Unveils AI-driven Enhancements To VPR
Tenable has announced the next evolution of its industry-leading Tenable Vulnerability Priority Rating (VPR) to sharpen precision and focus on risks that pose the greatest threat. Powered by generative AI, enriched threat intelligence and context-aware scoring, Tenable VPR enables organizations to quickly understand vulnerability impact, weaponization and precise remediation actions. While static Common Vulnerability Scoring System ( CVSS ) broadly flags 60% of vulnerabilities as high or critical, Tenable VPR narrowed this to a focused 3% at its launch in 2019. With these latest AI-driven enhancements, Tenable VPR delivers twice the clarity and precision by leveraging real-time data to pinpoint the critical 1.6% of vulnerabilities that represent actual business risk. These efficiency gains, combined with enhanced explainability and contextualization, translate to faster mean-time-to-remediation, optimized resources, and strategically aligned security efforts with organizational priorities. 'Our biggest problem was noise. We had thousands of vulnerabilities, and no clear way to know which ones posed a genuine threat,' said Jorge Orchilles, senior director, Readiness and Proactive Security, Verizon. 'Tenable VPR changed that by showing us what attackers are actually exploiting right now. It lets us focus our resources on the handful of issues that truly matter, which has made a real, measurable difference in how quickly we can get critical patches out.' 'We're taking our game-changing Tenable VPR to the next level with these AI-powered enhancements,' said Eric Doerr, chief product officer, Tenable. 'Tenable VPR brings an unmatched precision and depth of threat intelligence, context and explainability to cyber operations. With these critical insights at their fingertips, organizations can clearly visualize why an exposure matters, where they are vulnerable and how to close their priority risks.' In addition to hyper-focused risk prioritization, key enhancements to Tenable VPR include: AI-powered insights and explainability: VPR insights provide instant clarity, helping users quickly grasp why an exposure matters, how it's been weaponized by threat actors, and receive clear, actionable mitigation guidance. AI-generated threat summaries and remediation insights help users quickly understand real-world risks and next steps. VPR insights provide instant clarity, helping users quickly grasp why an exposure matters, how it's been weaponized by threat actors, and receive clear, actionable mitigation guidance. AI-generated threat summaries and remediation insights help users quickly understand real-world risks and next steps. Prioritization with industry and regional context: Enhanced filtering, querying and metadata help organizations understand and prioritize vulnerabilities based on real-world threats to their specific industry and region, ensuring critical exposures relevant to the business are addressed first.
Techday NZ
27-07-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Tenable adds AI to VPR for sharper, real-time risk detection
Tenable has announced enhancements to its Vulnerability Priority Rating (VPR), focusing on precise risk identification and remediation for security teams. The updated VPR, now driven by generative artificial intelligence, provides organisations with contextual threat intelligence and real-time prioritisation to highlight vulnerabilities that pose the most significant risk to business operations. The changes aim to address longstanding challenges in vulnerability management. Sharper risk focus The company's VPR was first introduced in 2019 as a counterpoint to the broad scoring provided by the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). While CVSS designates approximately 60% of vulnerabilities as high or critical, the original VPR narrowed the focus to just 3%. With the latest enhancements, Tenable reports that only 1.6% of vulnerabilities are now marked as representing genuine business risk, supported by real-time data and improved analytics. Jorge Orchilles, Senior Director, Readiness and Proactive Security at Verizon, described the practical impact that targeted vulnerability data has had on operational efficacy. "Our biggest problem was noise. We had thousands of vulnerabilities, and no clear way to know which ones posed a genuine threat," said Orchilles. "Tenable VPR changed that by showing us what attackers are actually exploiting right now. It lets us focus our resources on the handful of issues that truly matter, which has made a real, measurable difference in how quickly we can get critical patches out." AI-driven insights and explainability The enhancements are underpinned by generative AI, which produces tailored threat summaries and remediation advice. VPR's AI-powered insights are designed to help users quickly interpret why a particular vulnerability matters, its weaponisation by threat actors, and what actions are immediately necessary to mitigate risk. The technology delivers instant clarity to enable faster remediation and more strategic use of resources. Eric Doerr, Chief Product Officer at Tenable, outlined the strategic value of these new capabilities for organisations managing cyber risk. "We're taking our game-changing Tenable VPR to the next level with these AI-powered enhancements," said Doerr. "Tenable VPR brings an unmatched precision and depth of threat intelligence, context and explainability to cyber operations. With these critical insights at their fingertips, organisations can clearly visualise why an exposure matters, where they are vulnerable and how to close their priority risks." Industry and regional context A key feature of the updated VPR is its ability to apply industry- and region-specific threat context. Enhanced filtering, querying and use of metadata enable organisations to refine vulnerability prioritisation by relevance to their sector or area of operation. This approach ensures that security teams can address the exposures most relevant to their business environment, rather than relying on generic risk scores. According to the company, these changes are expected to support reduced mean-time-to-remediation and more strategic alignment between cybersecurity efforts and broader organisational goals. By providing more precise, context-rich data, Tenable aims to help organisations allocate security resources where they have the greatest impact. The latest iteration of Tenable's VPR builds on its previous reputation for prioritising threats and reducing the noise associated with vulnerability management. Through the addition of AI-driven explainability and tailored risk measures, the update is intended to allow cybersecurity and risk management teams to respond faster and more effectively to emerging threats. Follow us on: Share on:
Techday NZ
24-07-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Tenable boosts vulnerability priority rating with advanced AI
Tenable has announced advancements to its Vulnerability Priority Rating (VPR), incorporating AI-powered capabilities for heightened precision in identifying and addressing critical cybersecurity risks. The updated Tenable VPR aims to help organisations clarify which vulnerabilities require urgent attention, leveraging generative AI, advanced threat intelligence, and context-aware scoring. By doing so, the solution seeks to facilitate an understanding of vulnerability impact, exploitation potential, and the steps necessary for remediation. Cutting through the noise A significant challenge for businesses is the high volume of reported vulnerabilities, making it difficult to determine which issues pose a genuine threat. According to the company, while the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) previously classified around 60% of vulnerabilities as high or critical, the original VPR introduced in 2019 narrowed this number to 3%. With its latest AI enhancements, Tenable claims the VPR now focuses on just 1.6% of vulnerabilities that represent a material business risk. These improvements are designed to enable quicker remediation times, more efficient use of security resources, and alignment of security operations with key organisational priorities. Customer experience "Our biggest problem was noise. We had thousands of vulnerabilities, and no clear way to know which ones posed a genuine threat," said Jorge Orchilles, Senior Director, Readiness and Proactive Security at Verizon. "Tenable VPR changed that by showing us what attackers are actually exploiting right now. It lets us focus our resources on the handful of issues that truly matter, which has made a real, measurable difference in how quickly we can get critical patches out." Deeper insight and explainability The enhancements to VPR are underpinned by new AI-powered insights and explainability features. The company states that these improvements deliver instant clarity by providing users with detailed reasoning regarding the seriousness of a particular exposure, information on how threat actors have weaponised vulnerabilities, and actionable recommendations for mitigation. AI-generated threat summaries further aid users in understanding real-world risks and identifying appropriate next steps. Eric Doerr, Chief Product Officer at Tenable, commented, "We're taking our game-changing Tenable VPR to the next level with these AI-powered enhancements. Tenable VPR brings an unmatched precision and depth of threat intelligence, context and explainability to cyber operations. With these critical insights at their fingertips, organizations can clearly visualize why an exposure matters, where they are vulnerable and how to close their priority risks." Industry and regional context Tenable VPR now also includes enhanced filtering, querying, and metadata capabilities. These allow organisations to tailor their vulnerability management approach based on the threats most relevant to their specific industry sector and geographic location. The intent is to ensure that the vulnerabilities which present the greatest threat to a particular business are addressed first, improving risk posture in a targeted way. These features aim to assist organisations in tackling cyber threats more effectively by enabling clarity and prioritisation in patching and remediation efforts. The update is designed to give security teams more confidence in their decision-making processes and help them use time and resources more efficiently when addressing potential exposures. With these advancements, Tenable continues its focus on exposure management for organisations seeking to protect their assets from ongoing cyber risks. The company reports serving around 44,000 customers worldwide.
Techday NZ
22-05-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Picus launches tool for real-time validation of exploitable risks
Picus Security has introduced a new capability designed to help security teams determine which vulnerabilities in their environments are actually exploitable. The new feature, called Picus Exposure Validation, uses real-time attack simulations to provide evidence-based assessments of vulnerability risks within a specific organisation's environment. This approach aims to address the challenge of large numbers of vulnerabilities that are often identified but not all requiring immediate attention or remediation. With more than 40,000 new Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) disclosed in 2024 - with 61% ranked as high or critical - security teams often struggle to respond effectively, as traditional vulnerability management methods can lead to inefficient allocation of resources. Picus Security says the new capability assists security teams in distinguishing between vulnerabilities that can actually be exploited in their unique systems and those that can be safely deprioritised. Traditional vulnerability management is typically driven by severity metrics such as Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) and Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS), which provide generalised risk indicators but may not account for an individual organisation's existing security controls and asset criticality. Picus Exposure Validation aims to fill this gap with the Picus Exposure Score, an evidence-based, context-aware metric intended to reflect actual risk, according to the company. The system continuously tests security controls using real-world attack techniques to determine whether known vulnerabilities can be exploited given the organisation's current defences. The findings are automatically updated and presented in transparent reports, enabling quicker and more confident decision-making in response to new security threats. Volkan Ertürk, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Picus Security, commented: "The challenge today isn't finding vulnerabilities, it's knowing which ones matter in your unique environment. CVSS, EPSS and KEV offer theoretical risk signals. Picus Exposure Validation delivers proof by testing threats against your production defenses in real time. It replaces assumptions with evidence so security teams can focus on vulnerabilities that are actually exploitable." Key features highlighted by the company include the ability for security teams to more accurately prioritise remediation work, safely deprioritise less urgent vulnerabilities, and reduce manual workloads through the use of automated validation processes. The solution is said to include tailored recommendations to quickly improve the effectiveness of security controls, offering an alternative when immediate patching is not feasible. A global industrial firm reported that, upon deploying Picus Exposure Validation, it was able to reduce its list of critical patches by 85%. Based solely on CVSS ratings, 63% of the vulnerabilities in the organisation's systems were initially classified as critical. However, after applying Picus Exposure Validation, it was found that only 9% of those were truly high risk and required prioritisation. This reduction reportedly saved the organisation thousands of hours on patching activity and allowed the security team to focus resources more efficiently. The company positions Picus Exposure Validation as a new methodology for combining data about vulnerabilities with automated attack simulation to create an organisation-specific analysis of exploitability. This approach, according to Picus, offers security teams a more focused view on where to deploy efforts for mitigation and remediation and thereby enables more effective closing of security gaps. The Picus Exposure Validation feature is now available to organisations seeking enhanced vulnerability validation for their own environments. Follow us on: Share on:
Techday NZ
09-05-2025
- Business
- Techday NZ
Broadcom forces VMware clients to roll back crucial updates
Broadcom's recent changes to VMware licensing agreements are causing concern among IT professionals. Reports suggest that customers are being forced to roll back security updates, potentially exposing them to previously patched vulnerabilities. In early May 2025, VMware's parent company Broadcom began issuing cease-and-desist letters to customers with perpetual licences whose customer support had expired. These letters, according to reports verified by Ars Technica and highlighted by Comparitech in an analysis, demand that customers remove all updates made after the end of their support contracts, under threat of audits and possible litigation. The only exception to this demand allows customers to retain updates addressing zero-day vulnerabilities, or those with a Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) score of 9.0 or higher. All other security updates must be rolled back in compliance with Broadcom's current policy. Network administrators and IT professionals have expressed alarm at this directive's potential security and operational ramifications. According to users active on technical forums, including Reddit's /r/sysadmin, affected companies are placed in a difficult position: either remove important updates and risk security lapses, switch to more expensive subscription packages, or face the possibility of legal actions. Comparitech's analysis described this as leaving companies in a "zero-sum game" that could jeopardise future business prospects and the security of sensitive data. "Broadcom has effectively created a zero-sum game in which many existing customers who were grandfathered in after it purchased VMWare must now make a choice that could cost them millions and risk not only the future of their company but also the secure data that they maintain," the analysis stated. The policy has broader cybersecurity implications because rolling back updates reintroduces known vulnerabilities into network environments. These are security flaws that cybercriminals, including ransomware groups such as those behind the notorious WannaCry attacks, have previously exploited. "Update and security patch rollbacks are not benign. They reintroduce well-documented security flaws that cyber criminals have already learned to scan for and exploit," the analysis explained. The security concern is that ransomware gangs may target these known vulnerabilities, exploiting them to breach companies that had already patched the flaws. "Broadcom's efforts to force security rollbacks effectively threaten license holders with an order-of-magnitude increase in their risk of a data breach. While the company holding the license ultimately has the legal responsibility and business imperative to protect data, such actions on Broadcom's part raise serious ethical questions when businesses are forced to decrease protections and increase risk," Comparitech notes. Beyond security, update rollbacks could negatively affect the stability of critical IT infrastructure. Many updates patch security holes and deliver performance improvements and compatibility enhancements. Reverting to previous software states may destabilise hypervisors, break integrations with backup or disaster recovery tools, and disrupt operations in environments where reliability is crucial. "When companies are forced to revert their systems to an earlier state, it can quickly destabilise hypervisors, completely invalidate integrations with backup or DR tooling, and painfully disrupt resource scheduling for virtual workloads," Comparitech warned. For organisations in sectors such as education, healthcare, and government, where large volumes of regulated personal or health information are managed, system failures and downtime can become significant operational and financial risks. The sentiment among long-time VMware customers is described as betrayal and frustration. "This is like a mafioso shaking down a shopkeeper for protection money. I swear, if they won't be reasonable on my next phone call with them, then I will make it my mission — with God as my witness — to break the land speed record for fastest total datacenter migration to Hyper-V or Proxmox or whatever and shutting off ESXi forever. I'm THAT pissed off," one IT professional commented in April 2025 on /r/sysadmin. Comparitech's analysis suggests that Broadcom's actions put companies in a position where expensive migration to alternative platforms or subscription services may be the only safe option. However, these can be lengthy and complex processes. Many organisations may face significant costs or risks during the transition, and some may be unprepared to switch off VMware infrastructure quickly. With Broadcom reportedly willing to take legal action against non-compliant customers, as seen in an ongoing case against Siemens, the only immediate recourse for affected companies is to fortify their IT security. Steps recommended include hardening network perimeters, isolating vulnerable systems, implementing strict access controls, enhancing monitoring and detection, regular vulnerability scanning, auditing backup systems, reducing internet-facing exposures, and establishing a rapid response plan during the migration period. Broadcom completed its acquisition of VMware in 2023 and subsequently shifted VMware's licensing strategy. Perpetual licences for VMware products were discontinued, and new requirements pushed customers towards pricier, multi-year subscription models. In early 2024, the company also ended the availability of VMware's free ESXi hypervisor. It began restricting access to software downloads and binaries for customers without an active support-and-subscription agreement. "Broadcom's push to change VMware's licensing strategy was terrible from a customer service and customer satisfaction standpoint, but not immediately dangerous to customers and their data. However, the company's new efforts to strong-arm perpetual license holders into pricier subscription packages by canceling or failing to allow renewals of SnS agreements push its strategy into potentially unethical realms that endanger companies and their customers," Comparitech noted in its analysis. Comparitech plans to continue monitoring ransomware attack trends to assess whether future incidents can be traced to systems exposed through the forced rollback of security updates under Broadcom's policy.
