What Is a CVE and How Should You Prioritize Patch Management?

What Is a CVE?

CVE stands for Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures. It’s a globally accepted system for identifying, cataloging, and referencing publicly known cybersecurity flaws.

Managed by MITRE and sponsored by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the CVE database gives security teams a shared language for reporting and responding to software and firmware risks.

How CVEs Work

Each CVE corresponds to a specific vulnerability—such as buffer overflows, injection flaws, or misconfigurations—that could be exploited by an attacker. In many cases, CVEs refer to vulnerabilities that hackers are actively exploiting. A standard CVE entry includes:

• A detailed vulnerability description

• Affected products and versions

• A CVSS score indicating severity

• References to advisories and patches

For example:

• CVE-2024-34362: A zero-day exploited in the MOVEit breach

• CVE-2024-55956: Tied to the Cleo file transfer software compromise used by the C10p ransomware group

Security teams use CVEs to assess asset exposure, implement patch prioritization, and integrate data into SIEM, vulnerability scanners, and asset inventories.

What Is the CVSS Score?

The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) rates the severity of a CVE on a 0.0–10.0 scale:

• 9.0–10.0: Critical

• 7.0–8.9: High

• 4.0–6.9: Medium

• 0.1–3.9: Low

The CVSS score reflects technical severity, which can help security teams prioritize and judge CVEs in context. CVSS scores do not necessarily inform on whether the vulnerability is being actively exploited or how it impacts your specific environment. That’s why organizations need risk-based patching models that factor in more than score alone.

Why CVEs Matter More Than Ever in 2025

Paying attention to CVEs has always been a crucial step in managing cybersecurity risk, and as the threat landscape continues to evolve rapidly, the importance is only multiplying:

• Attackers increasingly weaponize known exploited vulnerabilities within hours

• Zero-day markets are targeting supply chain software, as seen in recent MOVEit and Cleo breaches

• SecurityScorecard’s 2025 data shows that 63.5% of vulnerability-based breaches tied back to just two CVEs in file transfer software

Organizations that lack timely CVE intelligence or delay vulnerability remediation timelines are highly exposed.

Why Traditional Patch Management Falls Short

Legacy patch programs often rely too heavily on CVSS without considering business context. Pitfalls can include:

• Focusing on volume over risk

• Patching based solely on severity, not exploit likelihood

• Ignoring CVE triage across third-party and cloud assets

• Leaving asset exposure in shadow IT, containers, and partner platforms

This can lead to low-priority CVEs being patched immediately, while actively exploited vulnerabilities remain unresolved. Given these shortcomings, organizations must rethink how they triage and act on vulnerabilities and prioritize based on real-world risk. 

How to Prioritize CVEs in 2025

A mature vulnerability management strategy uses contextual, risk-based prioritization. Factors to include:

Threat Intelligence:

• Is the CVE listed in CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog?

• Are ransomware groups exploiting it?

Exploitability:

• Is public exploit code available?

• Does it require user interaction or local access?

Asset Exposure:

• Is the asset internet-facing?

• Does it support business-critical operations?

Third-Party Risk:

• Are vendors or partners running this software?

• Could your organization be impacted indirectly or through several hops?

Severity and Criticality:

• What is the CVSS score?

• What systems or data would be affected?

This approach enables smarter CVE triage and prioritizes real-world risk over theoretical vulnerability lists.

In early 2025, the U.S. government announced that it would continue funding for the MITRE CVE resource, which is widely relied upon in the cybersecurity community.

In 2025, SecurityScorecard continues to provide vulnerability intelligence to the security community. SecurityScorecard will continue with planned enhancements to our internal vulnerability intelligence capabilities, further strengthening our ability to deliver robust and comprehensive cybersecurity insights to our customers. A newly formed CVE Foundation also has intentions to launch in 2025, according to media reporting.

CVE Management Best Practices

The following practices form the foundation of a proactive, risk-driven vulnerability program:

Automate Asset Discovery:
Use tools that scan continuously and include shadow IT, cloud, and container assets.

Integrate Threat Feeds:
Connect to CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) list and SecurityScorecard’s Attack Surface Intelligence for CVE risk tracking.

Tag and Filter by Context:
Categorize assets by criticality, owner, business impact, and compliance scope.

Consider Enforcing SLA-Based Patch Timelines:

• Critical CVEs: Patch within 24–72 hours

• High CVEs: 5 business days

• Medium/Low: Monthly patch cycles

Audit and Report Patch Status:
Track SLA adherence, remediation outcomes, and vendor patch responsiveness.

Patch Management in the Supply Chain

In 2025, patch hygiene must include your vendors. SecurityScorecard’s research shows:

• 35.5% of breaches stem from third-party vulnerabilities

• 41.4% of ransomware infections exploit outdated software from partner ecosystems

Through Supply Chain Detection and Response (SCDR), organizations can:

• Identify vendors running unpatched or vulnerable software

• Monitor patch cadence across ecosystems

• Flag known exploited vulnerabilities linked to third parties

• Detect misconfigured cloud instances tied to public CVEs

Third-party asset exposure is now a core security concern—not a secondary consideration. Extending patching visibility to your vendors is crucial for preventing unwanted vulnerability exploitation and exposure.

Common CVE Pitfalls to Avoid

Even with good visibility, execution gaps can derail vulnerability efforts. Here are the most frequent pitfalls to avoid. Avoiding these mistakes helps ensure your vulnerability program targets real risk, not just theoretical exposure:

• Relying solely on CVSS for risk decisions

• Ignoring internal vs external exposure context

• Applying patches without testing in critical systems

• Failing to hold vendors accountable for patch delays

Risk-based patching, paired with threat intelligence and contextual scoring, is now the gold standard.

Final Takeaway

Not all vulnerabilities deserve equal attention. Effective vulnerability management strategies in 2025 must combine CVSS score context, asset exposure, real-world threat intelligence, and third-party visibility.

SecurityScorecard empowers organizations with visibility into newly discovered zero-day threats—enabling accurate patch prioritization, fast vulnerability remediation timelines, and smarter CVE triage. In 2025, we are continuing to enhance our internal vulnerability intelligence capabilities.

SecurityScorecard’s SCDR managed service MAX, powered by threat and vulnerability intelligence, provides information on zero-day vulnerability exposure as it arises, providing unmatched visibility into organizational and third-party risk.

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