NewsPublished 20 Apr 2026

Handling the CVE Flood With EPSS, (Mon, Apr 20th)

Source SANS ISC Handlers Diary

Description

Every morning, security people around the world face the same ritual: opening their vulnerability feed to find a lot of new CVE entries that appeared overnight. Over the past decade, this flood has become a defining challenge of modern defensive security. Some numbers[1]:

Impact

There is no direct vulnerability or exploit described in this content. Instead, the impact is on vulnerability management processes: the flood of CVEs challenges security teams to prioritize effectively. EPSS offers a data-driven method to assess exploitation risk, potentially improving response efficiency and reducing exposure to actively exploited vulnerabilities. No known exploits or active threats are associated with this content.

Defensive guidance

This content does not describe a vulnerability requiring patching or direct remediation. Instead, it recommends adopting EPSS scoring to enhance vulnerability triage and prioritization. Security teams can integrate EPSS via available APIs into their existing tools to better focus on vulnerabilities with higher exploitation probabilities. No patches or fixes are applicable.

Summary

The article highlights the increasing volume of CVE disclosures, driven by expanded security research, bug bounty programs, automated scanning, and AI. Traditional CVSS scores quantify theoretical severity but do not indicate exploitation likelihood. EPSS, developed by FIRST, provides a probability score estimating the chance a CVE will be exploited within 30 days of publication, using a machine learning model trained on diverse threat intelligence data. The article details EPSS score ranges, data inputs, and practical integration examples for automated alert enrichment, enabling security teams to prioritize remediation efforts more effectively.

References

isc.sans.edu/diary/rss/32914 (opens in a new tab)

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Description

AI analysisMachine-generated, updated 20 Apr 2026, 06:46 UTC

References

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