KEV

Fewer than 5 percent of CVEs are ever exploited in the wild; the KEV catalog, maintained by CISA, is the list of the ones that have been. Vulnerability management teams use it to prioritize patching, since a flaw on the KEV list is a proven risk, not a theoretical one. US federal civilian agencies must patch KEV entries on a deadline under Binding Operational Directive 22-01.

• Tenable Nessus → The standard vulnerability scanner for finding and prioritizing what to patch. A scanner shows you the holes; fixing them is still your team's job.

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