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Exploit Technical Impact and categories of vulnerability

Prioritizing and understanding the technical impact and categorizations is key for prioritization. Vulnerability categories and their technical impacts vary widely, and their prevalence can fluctuate over time, as seen in multiple datasets, including those analyzed by Phoenix AI and the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. This summary provides an overview of key vulnerability categories, their impact, and trends observed across different datasets.

What are Technical Impact?

Remote Code Execution (RCE):

•Allows attackers to execute arbitrary code on a target system remotely.

•Can lead to complete system compromise, allowing attackers to control the system, deploy malware, or exfiltrate data.

Bypass:

•Enables attackers to circumvent security controls, such as authentication or access restrictions.

•Can result in unauthorized access to restricted resources, potentially leading to data theft or further exploitation.

Privilege Escalation:

•Allows attackers to elevate their privileges on a system, moving from a lower to a higher level of access.

•Can enable attackers to perform actions typically reserved for administrators or other privileged users, increasing the severity of the attack.

Denial of Service (DoS):

•Aims to disrupt the availability of a system by overwhelming it with traffic or exploiting flaws to crash or disable the service.

•Prevents legitimate users from accessing the service, causing potential downtime and loss of business continuity.

Information Leak:

•Involves the unintended exposure of sensitive data, such as personal information, system configurations, or credentials.

•Can provide attackers with critical information needed to launch further attacks or compromise the system.

Technical Impact

Vulnerabilities in software systems can have varying levels of impact, depending on their nature and how they are exploited. Remote Code Execution (RCE) is one of the most severe types, allowing attackers to run arbitrary code on a target system, potentially leading to complete system compromise. Bypass vulnerabilities enable attackers to circumvent security controls, such as authentication mechanisms, thereby gaining unauthorized access to restricted resources. Privilege Escalation allows attackers to elevate their permissions on a system, enabling them to perform actions normally reserved for higher-privileged users, which can lead to further exploitation or system control. Denial of Service (DoS) attacks aim to disrupt the availability of a system by overwhelming it with traffic or exploiting flaws that cause it to crash or become unresponsive, thereby denying legitimate users access. Finally, Information Leak vulnerabilities expose sensitive data, such as personal information, credentials, or system configurations, which attackers can use to further compromise the system or carry out targeted attacks. Each of these vulnerabilities poses significant risks to the security and integrity of software systems, requiring proactive mitigation to prevent exploitation.

Technical Impact in NVD

Technical Impact in CISA KEV

What are Vulnerability Categories?

Defining Exploitability: At its core, exploitability refers to the potential or likelihood of a vulnerability being exploited by malicious actors to compromise systems, applications, or networks.

Overflow: Buffer overflow vulnerabilities occur when an application writes more data to a buffer than it can hold, leading to memory corruption and potentially allowing attackers to execute arbitrary code.

Memory Corruption: These vulnerabilities occur when a program unintentionally modifies memory, potentially leading to unpredictable behavior, crashes, or code execution, compromising the system’s stability and security.

SQL Injection: This type of vulnerability allows attackers to inject malicious SQL queries into a database, enabling them to access, modify, or delete data without proper authorization.

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS): XSS vulnerabilities allow attackers to inject malicious scripts into web pages, which are then executed in the browsers of users, potentially leading to session hijacking, data theft, or defacement of the website.

Directory Traversal: This vulnerability enables attackers to access files and directories outside of the web root folder, potentially exposing sensitive information stored on the server.

File Inclusion: File inclusion vulnerabilities allow attackers to include files on a server through the web browser. This can lead to code execution, data theft, or the manipulation of critical server-side files.

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF): CSRF attacks trick users into performing unwanted actions on a web application where they are authenticated, potentially leading to unauthorized transactions or changes.

XML External Entity (XXE): XXE vulnerabilities exploit weaknesses in XML parsers to execute arbitrary code, exfiltrate data, or conduct denial-of-service attacks by including external entities in XML documents.

Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF): SSRF vulnerabilities allow attackers to send crafted requests from the server to internal systems, potentially leading to unauthorized access to internal services or network exploitation.

Open Redirect: This vulnerability occurs when a web application improperly redirects users to an untrusted site, potentially leading to phishing attacks or malware distribution.

Input Validation: Flaws in input validation occur when user inputs are not properly sanitized or validated, allowing attackers to inject malicious data that can lead to a wide range of attacks, including SQL Injection, XSS, and command injection.

Vulnerability Categories in NVD

Vulnerability Categories in CISA KEV

More details on Explotability

Owasp top 10 has been a pillar over the years; sister to CWE – Common Weakness Enumeration we provide an overview of the top software vulnerabilities and web application security risks with a data-driven approach focused on helping identify what risk to fix first.
Francesco Cipollone
With cyber threats growing in sophistication, understanding exploitability has become crucial for security teams to prioritize vulnerabilities effectively. This article explores the key factors that influence the likelihood of exploits in the wild, including attack vectors, complexity levels, privileges required, and more. You’ll learn how predictive scoring systems like EPSS are bringing added dimensions to vulnerability analysis, going beyond static scores. We discuss the importance of monitoring verified threat feeds and exploiting trends from reliable sources, instead of getting distracted by unverified claims and noise. Adopting a risk-based approach to prioritization is emphasized, where critical vulnerabilities are addressed not just based on CVSS severity, but also their likelihood of being exploited and potential business impact. Recent major exploits like Log4Shell are highlighted to stress the need for proactive security. Equipped with the insights from this guide, you’ll be able to implement a strategic, data-backed approach to focusing on the most pertinent risks over the barrage of vulnerabilities.
Francesco Cipollone

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Derek Fisher

Head of product security at a global fintech

Derek Fisher – Head of product security at a global fintech. Speaker, instructor, and author in application security.

Derek is an award winning author of a children’s book series in cybersecurity as well as the author of “The Application Security Handbook.” He is a university instructor at Temple University where he teaches software development security to undergraduate and graduate students. He is a speaker on topics in the cybersecurity space and has led teams, large and small, at organizations in the healthcare and financial industries. He has built and matured information security teams as well as implemented organizational information security strategies to reduce the organizations risk.

Derek got his start in the hardware engineering space where he learned about designing circuits and building assemblies for commercial and military applications. He later pursued a computer science degree in order to advance a career in software development. This is where Derek was introduced to cybersecurity and soon caught the bug. He found a mentor to help him grow in cybersecurity and then pursued a graduate degree in the subject.

Since then Derek has worked in the product security space as an architect and leader. He has led teams to deliver more secure software in organizations from multiple industries. His focus has been to raise the security awareness of the engineering organization while maintaining a practice of secure code development, delivery, and operations.

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Founder of Manicode Security

Jeevan Singh is the Director of Security Engineering at Rippling, with a background spanning various Engineering and Security leadership roles over the course of his career. He’s dedicated to the integration of security practices into software development, working to create a security-aware culture within organizations and imparting security best practices to the team.
In his role, Jeevan handles a range of tasks, from architecting security solutions to collaborating with Engineering Leadership to address security vulnerabilities at scale and embed security into the fabric of the organization.

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Chris Romeo is a leading voice and thinker in application security, threat modeling, and security champions and the CEO of Devici and General Partner at Kerr Ventures. Chris hosts the award-winning “Application Security Podcast,” “The Security Table,” and “The Threat Modeling Podcast” and is a highly rated industry speaker and trainer, featured at the RSA Conference, the AppSec Village @ DefCon, OWASP Global AppSec, ISC2 Security Congress, InfoSec World and All Day DevOps. Chris founded Security Journey, a security education company, leading to an exit in 2022. Chris was the Chief Security Advocate at Cisco, spreading security knowledge through education and champion programs. Chris has twenty-six years of security experience, holding positions across the gamut, including application security, security engineering, incident response, and various Executive roles. Chris holds the CISSP and CSSLP certifications.

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Founder of Manicode Security

Jim Manico is the founder of Manicode Security, where he trains software developers on secure coding and security engineering. Jim is also the founder of Brakeman Security, Inc. and an investor/advisor for Signal Sciences. He is the author of Iron-Clad Java: Building Secure Web Applications (McGraw-Hill), a frequent speaker on secure software practices, and a member of the JavaOne Rockstar speaker community. Jim is also a volunteer for and former board member of the OWASP foundation.

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