Vulnerability Prioritization – Combating Developer Fatigue

In early 2023, over 2,700 new vulnerabilities were registered in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database, posing challenges for developers who face fatigue from continuous vulnerability prioritization. The Sysdig 2023 Cloud-Native Security and Container Usage Report highlights that only 15% of high or critical vulnerabilities with available fixes are in-use at runtime, suggesting that focusing on these can significantly reduce wasted efforts. Despite the widespread adoption of shift-left security strategies, organizations struggle to balance vulnerability management with the rapid pace of software releases. The report emphasizes the importance of prioritizing vulnerabilities based on actual risk, using criteria like fix availability and exploitability, and highlights the role of runtime security in mitigating threats. Java packages are identified as particularly risky, while using lightweight base images like Alpine can reduce the attack surface drastically. The study underscores the gap between awareness of security tools and the maturity of cloud security processes, with supply chain risks and misconfigurations emerging as significant concerns amidst rapid cloud adoption.