Not Every CVE Deserves a Fire Drill: Focus on What’s Exploitable

More than 40,000 new vulnerabilities (CVEs) were published in 2024 alone. More than 60% of those were labeled “high” or “critical.” Sounds scary, sure, but how many of them actually put your environment at risk? Not nearly as many as you might think. Scoring systems like CVSS flag severity based on technical factors. But they don’t know your network, your controls, or how you’ve hardened key assets. That’s a problem. Because without context, teams spend too much time chasing scary-looking bugs that may already be blocked, and miss the quiet ones that aren’t. This post breaks down why traditional vulnerability prioritization often leads you astray, and how a better approach, exposure validation, helps teams focus on what’s truly exploitable. What’s the Problem With “Critical” Vulnerabilities? Let’s start with the numbers. Vulnerability disclosures jumped 38% last year. And many tools, scanners, patching platforms, and dashboards still sort them by raw CVSS or EPSS scores. But here ... Read full article.