Tag Archive for: Schwachstellenmanagement

Greenbone AG

Salt Typhoon: Greenbone Covers All Vulnerabilities

On August 27, more than 20 security agencies published a Cybersecurity Advisory with the title “Countering Chinese State-Sponsored Actors Compromise of Networks Worldwide to Feed Global Espionage System”

 

Publishing authorities included:

  • United States National Security Agency (NSA)
  • United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)
  • United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
  • Germany Federal Intelligence Service (BND) – Bundesnachrichtendienst
  • Germany Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) – Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz
  • Germany Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) – Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik

plus many more.

This is bad news. Good news is that Greenbone customers using the OPENVAS products are able to detect all vulnerabilities in this attack

  1. CVE-2024-21887 – Ivanti Connect Secure and Ivanti Policy Secure web-component command injection vulnerability, commonly chained after CVE-2023-46805 (authentication bypass).
  2. CVE-2024-3400 – Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS GlobalProtect arbitrary file creation leading to OS command injection. The CVE allows for unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE) on firewalls when GlobalProtect is enabled on specific versions/configurations.
  3. CVE-2023-20273 – Cisco Internetworking Operating System (IOS) XE software web management user interface flaw enabling post-authentication command injection/privilege escalation [T1068], commonly chained with CVE-2023-20198 for initial access to achieve code execution as root.
  4. CVE-2023-20198 – Cisco IOS XE web user interface authentication bypass vulnerability.
  5. CVE-2018-0171 – Cisco IOS and IOS XE smart install remote code execution vulnerability.

We strongly advise our customers to scan their systems and follow the information for patches, if affected.

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Greenbone AG

Greenbone Supports DORA Compliance with Vulnerability Detection, Data Sovereignty and Reporting

The global financial sector has been slammed with high-profile cyber incidents, placing trust in financial systems in jeopardy. These cyber attacks are extremely costly and widespread. Large corporations are not the only losers in this battle. Citizens also suffer directly when data protection and the integrity of financial transactions are compromised.

Some of the most impactful breaches of financial entities in the EU and globally include:

  • Equifax (2017): Breached via an unpatched vulnerability in Apache Struts, leading to the theft of Social Security Numbers (SSN), birthdates, addresses and driver’s licenses of 147 million people.
  • UniCredit (2018): Italy’s second-largest bank exposed the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of 778,000 clients; the Italian DPA finally issued a €2.8 million fine for the breach in 2024.
  • Capital One (2019): A misconfigured firewall was used to breach Capital One to steal the PII of 106 million individuals.
  • Finastra (2023): The UK-based fintech provider servicing global banks, was breached via its secure file-transfer system, resulting in the theft of over 400 GB of sensitive financial data from major banking clients.
  • UBS and Pictet (2025): A third-party cyberattack on Chain IQ exposed the PII of over 130,000 employees, including contact information for top executives.
  • Bybit (2025): North Korean hackers stole $1.5 billion worth of Ethereum from Bybit’s cold wallet, marking the biggest crypto exchange hack ever recorded.

These incidents emphasize the strategic importance of securing financial technology providers. Cyber attacks against banks include fraudulent wire transfers, ATM hacking, POS malware and data theft. Arguably, the impact of sensitive PII being stolen is even worse than simply stealing money. Stolen identities: names, SSNs, addresses and other PII are later sold on darknet marketplaces and used by attackers to commit identity theft, open fraudulent bank accounts or lines of credit and to conduct social engineering against individuals directly. Geopolitical tensions further place data theft victims at risk; hostile nation states and legally ambiguous intelligence brokers collect intelligence on individuals for surveillance, intimidation campaigns or worse.

In response to elevating threats, the Digital Operational Resilience Act, (aka “DORA”) exists to strengthen the EU financial sector’s cybersecurity posture with greater safeguards. This new legal framework is a pivotal piece of legislation within the EU’s financial regulatory framework, to stabilize consumer trust and bolster business confidence.

How OPENVAS SECURITY INTELLIGENCE by Greenbone Supports DORA Compliance:

  • Vulnerability management is a fundamental IT security activity with a well-established benefit to operational resilience. OPENVAS SCAN by Greenbone is an industry leading vulnerability scanner with a proven track record.
  • Our OPENVAS ENTERPRISE FEED has industry leading coverage for CVE detection as well as other network and endpoint vulnerability detection.
  • OPENVAS SCAN can identify the encryption protocols allowed by network services to ensure data-in-transit is compliant with data security best practices.
  • Our compliance scans can attest security hardened configuration for a wide range of operating systems (OS) and applications. This includes certified CIS Benchmarks for Apache HTTPD, Microsoft IIS, NGINX, MongoDB, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Google Chrome, Windows 11 Enterprise, Linux, and more [1][2].
  • All OPENVAS SECURITY INTELLIGENCE components are designed for absolute data sovereignty; your organization’s data never needs to leave the organization.
  • Our core product line is open source, time tested and open to external review by customers and community members alike. This visibility helps streamline third-party ICT service providers auditing.
  • OPENVAS REPORT by Greenbone is specially tailored to support evidence gathering and data retention for compliance reporting.
  • As an active ISO/IEC 27001:2022 and ISO 9001:2015 certified organization, Greenbone is dedicated to the most stringent quality standards for Information Security. Our ISO:14001 certification for Environmental Management Systems shows our continued commitment to things that matter.

The EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA)

DORA is an EU regulation published in the Official Journal of the European Union on January 16, 2023, which came into force on January 17, 2025. DORA is part of the EU’s broader Digital Finance Strategy, and its goal is to standardize cybersecurity governance and risk management requirements, strengthening the operational resilience of financial entities in the EU. The act applies to 20 different types of financial entities including banks, insurance companies, investment firms and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) third-party service providers (TPP).

But aren’t financial entities subject to NIS 2 regulation as Essential Entities (EEs)?

Yes, but under Article 4 of NIS 2, financial services firms covered by DORA—such as banks, investment firms, insurance institutions, and financial market infrastructures—must fully adhere to DORA’s requirements when it comes to cybersecurity risk management and incident reporting. Also, any other sector-specific equivalent EU mandates that apply to risk management or incident reporting must take precedence over the corresponding provisions in NIS 2.

Who are the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs)?

There are three formally designated ESAs responsible for issuing Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) and Implementing Technical Standards (ITS) which clarify DORA’s requirements. The ESA entities are:

  • The European Banking Authority (EBA) [1]
  • The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) [2]
  • The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) [3]

What are Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS)?

As the name implies, RTS define the required technical standards that entities covered by DORA must adhere to. RTS documents provide detailed guidance to ensure consistent application of DORA across the EU financial sector [4].

The final draft Regulatory Technical Standards are:

  • ICT risk management framework and simplified ICT risk management framework [5]
  • Criteria for the classification of ICT-related incidents [6]
  • Policy on ICT services supporting critical or important functions provided by TPPs [7]

What are Implementing Technical Standards (ITS)?

ITS are detailed rules that specify how financial entities must comply with obligations. They translate DORA’s general provisions into precise operational, procedural, and reporting standards. ITS address incident reporting, tracking of ICT TPP relationships and assessments, threat-led penetration testing (TLPT), and cyber threat information sharing.

  • The final draft ITS of templates for the register of information [8]

The Scope of DORA’s Impact on IT Security

Here are the fundamental IT security principles that DORA impacts:

  1. Risk Management: DORA mandates that financial entities implement robust IT Risk Management Frameworks (RMF) to reduce their operational risks.
  2. Incident Reporting: Fully regulated entities must report major cybersecurity incidents to their national authorities within 24 hours following a standardized format. However, small, non-interconnected, and exempt entities are eligible for reduced reporting requirements.
  3. Third-Party Risk: DORA establishes stricter oversight and accountability for how financial entities manage their relationships with third-party ICT service providers.
  4. Security Testing: Financial entities must conduct regular security assessments of their digital systems to improve resilience against cyber threats.
  5. Information Sharing: For improved information sharing between financial institutions and relevant authorities, entities are encouraged to report emerging threats if they may be relevant to others.

Summary

High-profile cyberattacks have exposed cracks in the financial sector’s deep digital weaknesses, prompting the EU to enact, and as January 17th, 2025, enforce the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA). Greenbone is an ally to support DORA compliance for covered entities with our established and trusted suite of enterprise vulnerability management products and compliance reporting tools. Our products support resilient data sovereignty, and detailed security assessment reporting.

True cyber risk mitigation is not simply about meeting compliance checkboxes. Defenders must be proactive in detecting emerging risks as early as possible to strengthen operational resilience. Greenbone enables early awareness of security vulnerabilities allowing the IT defenders of Europe’s financial entities to fix them before cyber breaches occur.

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Joseph Lee

ToolShell: Patch Bypass Prompts Emergency Alerts for Microsoft SharePoint

On Saturday, July 19th, flaws in Microsoft SharePoint Server became the subject of emergency cybersecurity alerts worldwide. Four CVEs are involved and collectively dubbed “ToolShell”; two published in early July already had patches available, but after being bypassed, two new CVEs were issued. The flaws can allow unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE) at the Windows SYSTEM level.

So far, mass exploitation attacks have breached the US Nuclear Weapons Agency and over 400 other organizations including multi-national corporations, healthcare and other government services, financial service providers, and energy critical infrastructure. Active exploitation was first observed by Eye Security and three CVEs have been added to CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog and tied to ransomware attacks by Chinese state-sponsored threat actors. Several public proof of concept (PoC) exploit kits are available [1][2][3]. National CERT advisories have been issued from many countries including CERT-EU [4], the Netherlands [5], New Zealand [6], Canada [7], and Germany [8]. The Shadowserver Foundation has observed over 9,000 public facing SharePoint IP addresses globally.

OPENVAS SECURITY INTELLIGENCE by Greenbone includes version detection tests [9][10][11][12], a direct active check [13] for all ToolShell CVEs, and an active check for associated indicators of compromise (IoC) [14] in our ENTERPRISE FEED. OPENVAS ENTERPRISE FEED customers should verify their feed update status regularly to ensure their appliance includes the latest vulnerability checks. Let’s review the details surrounding these elusive ToolShell bugs.

A Timeline of ToolShell Events

Here is a brief timeline of ToolShell events so far:

The ToolShell CVEs in Microsoft SharePoint

When the original “ToolShell” flaws (CVE-2025-49706 and ) were first exposed in May, 2025, no technical details were published with the hack, but the disclosure led to official patches by mid-July. However, security researchers soon observed attacks bypassing fully patched servers. Two new vulnerabilities have been published in response (CVE-2025-53770 and CVE-2025-53771).

Here are brief details for each ToolShell CVE:

  • CVE-2025-49704 (CVSS 8.8): Improper code generation (aka “code injection”) [CWE-94] allows an authorized attacker to execute code remotely. According to Cisco Talos, the flaw can be exploited by an authenticated attacker with Site Member privileges, while Microsoft indicates that Site Owner privileges are required. According to Microsoft, exploitation is trivial with a high likelihood of successful attack.
  • CVE-2025-49706 (CVSS 6.3): Improper authentication [CWE-287] allows an authorized attacker to perform spoofing over a network.
  • CVE-2025-53770 (CVSS 9.8): Deserialization of untrusted data [CWE-502] allows an unauthorized attacker to execute code [CWE-94] over a network. This is a variant of CVE-2025-49704.
  • CVE-2025-53771 (CVSS 6.3): Improper limitation of a pathname to a restricted directory [CWE-22] (aka “path traversal”) allows an authorized attacker to perform spoofing over a network. This is a variant of CVE-2025-49706.

The ToolShell Attack Details:

Exploiting ToolShell allows unauthenticated RCE on vulnerable Microsoft SharePoint Servers. Here’s how the attack unfolds:

  1. CVE-2025-49706 allows access to internal SharePoint services by manipulating the header Referer: /_layouts/SignOut.aspx to bypass request validation logic. This tricks SharePoint’s request validation logic into treating the request as authenticated, even though no real session or credentials exist.
  2. Simultaneously, a malicious __VIEWSTATE payload is sent to the /_layouts/15/ToolPane.aspx endpoint which includes a specially crafted .NET gadget chain to exploit the CVE-2025-53770 deserialization flaw. __VIEWSTATE payloads are serialized ASP.NET objects meant to synchronize UI control state between the user’s browser and the SharePoint backend server.
  3. The deserialization flaw allows exe or PowerShell commands to be executed as the Windows SYSTEM user and full control of an affected system.
  4. With full admin control, attackers were observed installing malicious ASPX web shells (named aspx among other filenames) to extract the breached system’s MachineKey configuration (ValidationKey and DecryptionKey) allowing persistent authenticated access.
  5. With these stolen access tokens, attackers may continue to submit valid __VIEWSTATE payloads using the .

Mitigating ToolShell Attacks Against Microsoft SharePoint

ToolShell affects on-premises editions of Microsoft Office SharePoint 2016, 2019, Subscription Edition as well as end-of-life (EOL) editions such as SharePoint Server 2010 and 2013. Users must apply the latest patches as soon as possible. Also, keep in mind that CVE-2025-49704 and CVE-2025-49706 were patched in Microsoft’s July 2025 Security Update, however, the discovery of bypass exploits resulted in the need for new patches:

  • KB5002754 for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2019 Core
  • KB5002768 for Microsoft SharePoint Subscription Edition
  • KB5002760 for Microsoft SharePoint Enterprise Server 2016
  • SharePoint Server 2010 and 2013 are affected, but will not be patched due to their EOL status
  • SharePoint Online for Microsoft 365 is NOT vulnerable

Microsoft’s guidance instructs users to enable AMSI with Full Mode and use Microsoft Defender Antivirus to prevent successful attacks. Defenders should also assume their systems have been compromised and hunt for IoC identified in observed campaigns. In addition to identifying and removing any malware infection, users should mitigate the risk posed by stolen credentials. This is accomplished by rotating their ASP.NET machine keys using PowerShell (Update-SPMachineKey) or through the Central Administration’s Machine Key Rotation Job, then restart IIS with iisreset.exe.

Summary

The ToolShell attack chain puts users at risk of unauthenticated RCE. The attack is an authentication bypass followed by flawed deserialization for RCE. Although patches for CVE-2025-49704 and CVE-2025-49706 were issued in July 2025, new variants (CVE-2025-53770, CVE-2025-53771) have been discovered and are now being actively exploited globally. Defenders must apply all available updates as soon as they become available, remove any persistent malware infection installed by attackers, rotate machine keys, and verify resilience. OPENVAS SECURITY INTELLIGENCE can swiftly and reliably detect vulnerable instances of Microsoft SharePoint and over 180.000 additi

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Joseph Lee

June 2025 Threat Report: A Cyber Combat of Attrition

The 2025 IOCTA report from Europol warns that demand for data on the cybercrime underground is surging. How much data has been stolen exactly? Determining exact numbers is impossible. However, the personal information of 190 million individuals including Social Security Numbers (SSN), was stolen from Change Healthcare in a single breach. That’s more than half of the total US population exposed in one incident. That incident pales in comparison to the 2024 National Public Data Breach, which included 272 million distinct SSNs, 420 million distinct addresses, and 161 million distinct phone numbers. In 2024, Europe saw approximately 363 breach notifications per day across surveyed EEA countries. Now, new strains of destructive wiper malware are emerging. In comparison, victims of data theft may soon be considered the “lucky” ones.

Cyber defenders are in a battle of attrition. Managing the continuous onslaught of new threats is a monumental and critical task. In this month’s threat report, we provide insight into the latest wave of wiper malware, new actively exploited vulnerabilities, and emerging threats shaping the global cyber conflict.

New Wave of Wipers Enter the Cyber Combat

Cisco Talos just observed a previously unknown wiper malware dubbed “PathWiper”, leveraged in a destructive attack against Ukrainian critical infrastructure. Wiper most often gets deployed during Cyber Warfare (CW) campaigns, when financial gain is not the primary motive. Whereas ransomware coerces victims into paying for the return of their encrypted data, wipers simply destroy it. Wipers have been used since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war. HermeticWiper was deployed against Ukraine in 2022, crippling government agencies and critical services hours before Russia first invaded.

Cybersecurity analysts also recently noted an emerging ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) group, Anubis, which has added a wiper option to their custom ransomware payload. Amidst heightened geopolitical tensions, it’s plausible that nation-state threat actors will incentivize willing RaaS operators and hacktivists to carry out destructive attacks for impact.

Wiper attacks themselves aren’t new. Shamoon (aka Disttrack), discovered in 2012, was the first major Wiper malware. Suspected to be developed by Iranian threat actors, it was used to attack Saudi Aramco and other Gulf state organizations. Masquerading as ransomware, NotPetya was another prominent wiper strain that emerged in 2017 with global impact.

Organizations, especially critical infrastructure, need to consider the potential impact that wiper malware could have on their resilience. What if paying ransom is not an option? A well designed backup strategy can enable full or partial data recovery, but downtime also has a financial impact and has even recently resulted in loss of life. Ensuring that mean-time-to-recovery (MTTR) objectives can be realized is key to operational continuity. Of course, diligently closing security gaps before threat actors can exploit them is also essential to a proactive cyber strategy.

Sorting True Risk from “AI-Slop”: Linux CVEs in Flux

The days when Linux attracted fewer cyber attacks have long passed. Linux systems are increasingly targeted by sophisticated actors. Last year, the number of Linux kernel CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) also exploded: the Kernel CNA (CVE Numbering Authority) assigned an average of 55 new CVEs per week in 2024. This growth is sometimes attributed to AI uncovering bugs which are not actually security risks – dubbed “AI slop”. Curl’s creator, Daniel Stenberg, even posted a notice banning “AI slop” bug reports. A related bug report discussion raised the concern of “an attack on our resources to handle security issues”.

On the risk and patch management side of the coin, many defenders don’t have the luxury of conducting a deep investigation into each CVE’s technical feasibility. Conducting technical assessments and analyzing “patch diffs” takes enormous amounts of time. The resulting battle of attrition pits security teams against the clock. To prioritize remediation, they rely on CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System), EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System), exploit status, and environmental factors such as compliance requirements and operational criticality. Security leaders want to see evidence that progress is continuous and that security gaps are closed. This is truly the benefit of using a vulnerability management platform such as Greenbone.

That being said, here are some new high-risk Linux privilege escalation CVEs that gained attention this month:

  • CVE-2023-0386 (CVSS 7.8): Now deemed actively exploited, the Linux kernel’s OverlayFS subsystem allows escalation to root-level by abusing how files with special privileges are copied between certain mounted filesystems.
  • CVE-2025-6019 (CVSS 7.0): A flaw found in Fedora and SUSE distros allows non-root users in the “allow_active” group to execute privileged disk operations such as mounting, unlocking, and formatting devices via D-Bus calls to “udisksd”. The vulnerability is considered easy to exploit, and a public PoC (Proof of Concept) is available, increasing the risk.
  • CVE-2025-32462 and CVE-2025-32463: Two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities were fixed in Sudo 1.9.17p1, released on June 30, 2025. CVE-2025-32462 allows local users to abuse the –host option to escalate privileges on permitted hosts, while CVE-2025-32463 permits unauthorized root access via the —chroot option, even when not explicitly allowed in the sudoers file.
  • CVE-2025-40908 (CVSS 9.1): Unauthenticated attackers can modify existing files simply by processing a crafted YAML file as input, due to improper use of the two-argument open call. Vulnerable systems include any Perl applications or distributions (like Amazon Linux, SUSE, Red Hat, Debian) using YAML‑LibYAML before version 0.903.0.

CVE-2025-49113: A Critical Severity CVE in RoundCube Webmail

A recently disclosed vulnerability tracked as CVE-2025-49113 (CVSS 9.9) in RoundCube Webmail allows authenticated attackers to execute arbitrary code on a RoundCube server. A poorly designed PHP deserialization operation [CWE-502] fails to properly validate user input, allowing the “_from” parameter to carry malicious serialized code. Attackers who successfully exploit the bug can potentially gain full control over the RoundCube server to steal data and install command and control (C2) tools for persistent access.

Although CVE-2025-49113 requires valid credentials for exploitation, admin credentials are not required. Technical analysis [1][2], PoC exploits [3][4], and a Metasploit module are available, increasing the potential risk for abuse. An EPSS score of 81 indicates an extremely high probability of exploitation in the near future. Meanwhile, the researcher who discovered the flaw claims that exploit kits are already for sale on underground cybercrime forums. Numerous national CERT agencies have issued alerts for the flaw [5][6][7][8][9], while Shadowserver reported over 84,000 exposed Roundcube services existed in early June.

Greenbone Enterprise Feed includes remote version detection [10][11] and Linux Local Security Checks (LSC) [12][13][14][15][16][17] to identify vulnerable instances of RoundCube Webmail (versions prior to 1.5.10 and 1.6.11). Users are encouraged to apply updates with urgency.

New Critical CVE in Cisco ISE Cloud Has PoC Exploit

CVE-2025-20286 (CVSS 10) is a new flaw affecting Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) cloud deployments on AWS, Azure, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). The bug could allow unauthenticated, remote attackers to access sensitive data, perform some limited administrative operations, modify system configurations, and disrupt services. Due to poor software design, identical access credentials [CWE-259] are generated and shared across all connected ISE instances running the same release and platform.

Cisco has acknowledged the existence of a publicly available exploit. The vendor also stated that the vulnerability is only exploitable when the Primary Administration Node is deployed in the cloud. On-premises deployments and several hybrid/cloud VM solutions are not affected. Overall, the widespread use of Cisco ISE in enterprise networks and the availability of exploit code make CVE-2025-20286 a high-risk vulnerability for those with affected configurations. Greenbone includes a version detection test to identify instances that may be vulnerable.

CitrixBleed 2 and Another Actively Exploited Flaw in Citrix NetScaler ADC and Gateway

Dubbed “CitrixBleed 2”, CVE-2025-5777 (CVSS 9.3) is an out-of-bounds read [CWE-125] vulnerability affecting Citrix NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway, which allows unauthenticated, remote attackers to steal valid session tokens from memory by sending malformed HTTP requests. CVE-2025-5777 is due to insufficient input validation – unfortunately, a common, yet easily preventable root cause of software bugs. Exposure of session tokens allows impersonation of legitimate users, resulting in unauthorized access. Security experts speculate that exploitation is imminent, drawing parallels to the original CitrixBleed (CVE-2023-4966) vulnerability leveraged by ransomware groups in high-profile breaches.

Another flaw, CVE-2025-6543 (CVSS 9.8), also affecting Citrix NetScaler ADC and Gateway, was added to CISA KEV, indicating that active exploitation is already underway. CVE-2025-6543 is a memory overflow vulnerability [CWE-119]. While the impact has been officially described as DoS, researchers believe it may come to arbitrary code execution or device takeover, as seen in similar past cases.

Both flaws only impact devices configured as Gateway (VPN virtual server, ICA Proxy, CVPN, RDP Proxy) or AAA (Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting) virtual servers. Both flaws are the subject of widespread national CERT advisories [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. Greenbone provides a remote version check to detect CitrixBleed 2 and a remote version check for CVE-2025-6543. Users should patch with urgency.

A Trio of Exploitable Sitecore CMS Flaws

Three new CVEs affecting Sitecore Experience Platform can be chained to allow unauthenticated Remote Code Execution (RCE) . The flaws were disclosed with a full technical description and PoC guidance, making their exploitation highly likely. In the attack chain, CVE-2025-34509 provides initial authenticated access, while CVE-2025-34510 or CVE-2025-34511 are both post-auth RCE flaws. Attackers can first exploit hardcoded credentials to generate a valid session token, then upload a malicious “.aspx” web shell and proceed to execute arbitrary shell commands on the victim’s system. Alternatively, CVE-2025-34511 could be used to execute PowerShell commands instead of uploading a web shell.

Here are brief descriptions of each:

  • CVE-2025-34509 (CVSS 8.2): Hardcoded credentials [CWE-798] allow remote attackers to authenticate using this account to access the admin API.
  • CVE-2025-34510 (CVSS 8.8): A relative path traversal vulnerability [CWE-23] known as “Zip Slip” allows an authenticated attacker to extract malicious files from a ZIP archive into the webroot directory, which could lead to RCE via .aspx web shell.
  • CVE-2025-34511 (CVSS 8.8): An unrestricted file upload vulnerability [CWE-434] in the PowerShell Extensions module allows an attacker to upload arbitrary files, including executable scripts, to any writable location. Although CVE-2025-34511 requires the Sitecore PowerShell Extension to be installed, this is considered a common configuration.

Sitecore is a popular enterprise Content Management System (CMS) used by major global organizations across industries. While it is estimated that Sitecore represents between 0.45% and 0.86% of the global CMS market share [1][2], this user base consists of high-value targets. Greenbone is able to detect vulnerable instances of Sitecore with an active check and a remote version detection test. Patches were released in Sitecore version 10.4 and backported to earlier supported versions, allowing users to upgrade.

Bypass of CVE-2025-23120 in Veeam Backups

CVE-2025-23121 (CVSS 9.9) is a deserialization flaw [CWE-502] that allows authenticated domain users to execute arbitrary code [CWE-94] on Veeam Backup & Replication servers. The vulnerability arises from insecure data processing and is considered a bypass of a previously patched flaw, CVE-2025-23120.

No public PoC exploit is currently available. However, CVEs in Veeam Backup & Replication are often targeted by attackers. Furthermore, the vulnerability only applies to organizations using domain-joined backup servers. However, it presents a serious threat given the importance of backups in ransomware recovery. Attackers may gain valid credentials for authentication via credential theft or use password spraying to target re-used credentials.

Greenbone can remotely detect affected Veeam products and prompt patching to version 12.3.2.3617, which is strongly recommended.

Summary

June 2025 saw the emergence of at least two new wiper malware strains, threatening to impact critical infrastructure and enterprises. Widespread massive data breaches are escalating, impacting organizations and individuals as stolen data gets used for various malicious ends. This month also saw a deluge of newly discovered, critical-severity vulnerabilities in enterprise-grade products, most of which were not covered in this report. Many with PoCs or full exploit kits available within hours of their disclosure. From RoundCube and Cisco ISE to Citrix and Linux systems, high-risk digital weaknesses that demand attention are escalating the cyber war of attrition for defenders worldwide.

It’s not “unauthenticated” because the first step is to gain authentication, right?

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Markus Feilner

Massive Weaknesses in Government Data Centers, Says Bundesrechnungshof

Germany’s Bundesrechnungshof has sharply criticized the current state of cybersecurity in the federal administration. Der Spiegel quotes a document classified as confidential, which concludes that significant parts of the government’s IT infrastructure have serious security flaws and do not meet the minimum requirements of the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI).

The Bundesrechnungshof (BRH) is Germany’s supreme audit institution responsible for the federal government’s budgetary and economic oversight. It examines whether federal authorities, ministries, federal enterprises, and other public institutions are using taxpayers’ money properly, economically, and efficiently. It is independent of both the federal government and the Bundestag.

The report criticizes the lack of a central, cross-departmental information security control system. It also states that the existing security architecture must become more efficient.

Inadequate Governance  and NIS2 Preparation

Another point of criticism concerns the requirements of the NIS 2 Directive [1] [2] [3]. This introduces significant new obligations for federal authorities and KRITIS-related organizations – particularly with regard to prevention, documentation requirements, and BSI oversight. Many institutions are neither technically nor organizationally prepared for this.

The Court of Auditors welcomes the fact that the adjustment of Germany’s debt limit will allow targeted investment in cybersecurity. However, the investments are tied to the demonstrable effectiveness of the measures. In practice, this means only those who can prove their security measures lead to concrete improvements will receive future funding.

Increasing Pressure to Act

The report highlights growing pressure on public administration. The threat landscape continues to worsen, with annual damages in the hundreds of billions. The BRH is calling for a shift toward structured, data-driven, and sustainable security management.

The widespread failure is alarming. Serious weaknesses have been found in almost all data centers of German public authorities – with dramatic consequences for the security, resilience, and trustworthiness of the government’s IT infrastructure. Public authorities and KRITIS operators must take action now and introduce modern vulnerability management.

In many cases, there is not even an emergency power supply, and fewer than one in ten examined data centers meet the BSI’s minimum standards for high availability. According to the investigation, this is concerning: lack of redundancy, outdated systems, and insufficient reliability all jeopardize the functionality of critical infrastructure in the event of a crisis.

Over 180 Billion Euros in Damage Every Year

The damage is already being done: according to current figures, cyberattacks cause over 180 billion euros in damage every year in Germany. Acts of sabotage, hybrid attacks, and blackout scenarios have long been a reality – and the trend is rising.

However, the German BRH identifies many shortcomings: a lack of structured information security, cross-departmental and data-based IT risk management, and appropriate governance . Reliable information is lacking – without which it is impossible to realistically assess risk levels or progress in individual cases, let alone provide evidence.

Greenbone’s Vulnerability Management Helps

When it comes to implementing the right measures and proving their effectiveness, solutions like those offered by Greenbone come into play. Modern vulnerability management provides a decisive strategic advantage. Among other things, it provides a reliable, robust basis to support data-driven decision-making for administrators and management.

Greenbone’s OPENVAS automatically, continuously, and objectively detects, evaluates, and prioritizes vulnerabilities. This creates a reliable foundation for IT governance  structures – even in ministries, government agencies, and other public-sector enterprises. Vulnerability Management also ensures the essential transparency in times of growing accountability – thus becoming a mandatory component rather than a “nice-to-have.”

Greenbone Vulnerability Management reports contain CVSS ratings, trend analyses, and progress indicators. Authorities can use these not only for internal documentation but also to demonstrate measurable improvements to audit offices and ministries.

Equipped for NIS2

The new NIS2 directive tightens requirements for operators of critical infrastructure. It defines new responsibilities, expands BSI controls and reporting obligations, and specifies the software components to be used. As a result, more companies are dealing with the upcoming German version of the regulation.

Greenbone’s solutions actively support public authorities and KRITIS-related organizations in preparing for regulatory audits. Features such as automated vulnerability management, audit-proof reporting, and audit trails provide security, even under increasing regulatory control.

Webinars Help with Prevention – Now Is the Time to Act!

Greenbone customers receive concrete help when it comes to meeting BSI requirements in the data center, preparing for audits, and viewing vulnerability management as part of emergency preparedness. After all, prevention is always cheaper and more effective than crisis management.

The report by the German BRH is a wake-up call – and an opportunity. And because cybersecurity begins with visibility, Greenbone is the right choice. Contact us or attend our webinars – like the latest series for public authorities and KRITIS, offering in-depth information on implementing the NIS 2 Directive, data center hardening, and georedundancy, as well as on the basic structure of vulnerability control . Dates, content, and registration can be found on the website.

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Joseph Lee

LEV: Demystifying the New Vulnerability Metrics in NIST CSWP 41

In 2025, IT security teams are overwhelmed with a deluge of new security risks. The need to prioritize vulnerability remediation is an ongoing theme among IT security and risk analysts. In a haystack of tasks, finding the needles is imperative. Factors compounding this problem include a cybersecurity talent shortage, novel attack techniques, and the increasing rate of CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) disclosure.

To meet this need for better precision and efficiency, a wave of new prioritization metrics has emerged. Not that more perspectives on risk are a bad thing, but already overwhelmed defenders find themselves in a difficult position; the choice between pushing forward or pausing to evaluate the value of new metrics.

Released by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) in May 2025, the Likely Exploited Vulnerabilities (or just LEV) metric consolidates historical EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) time-series, and in-the-wild exploitation status, to compute, among other things, an aggregate risk score. In this article, we will take a dive into what LEV is and the supplemental equations released in NIST’s recent technical whitepaper (NIST CSWP 41).

The Reason Behind LEV (Likely Exploited Vulnerabilities)

LEV uses a CVE’s historical EPSS time-series to calculate a cumulative risk score representing the probability that it has ever been actively exploited. But how is this different from EPSS itself? Isn’t EPSS, a machine learning (ML) model with almost 1,500 predictive features, good enough?

Some academic criticisms have revealed that EPSS can miss critical vulnerabilities. Direct observation of historical EPSS data shows that scores can spike for a very short period of time (1-2 days), then return to a moderate or low baseline. This presents potential problems for defenders using EPSS.

For example, EPSS does not reflect how cybercriminals operate. Industry reports show that attackers exploite vulnerabilities whenever and wherever they are found, even old ones. In other words, attackers don’t say “Let’s not exploit that vulnerability because it’s too old”. Therefore, using only the most current EPSS score can hide severe risk, even those uncovered in the recent past. Defenders may solve this problem by always applying the highest EPSS score in their risk assessment. But another weakness still looms with raw EPSS scores: According to fundamental statistical theory, the accumulation of moderate probability scores should also signify high probability of an event occurring.

LEV addresses this last limitation by calculating a cumulative probability using each CVE’s historical EPSS data. LEV applies the common product-based approach for calculating cumulative probability of at least one event occurring among several independent events. As a result, CVEs which didn’t trigger alerts (even using the max EPSS) now appear as high-risk using LEV.

Mathematical Input and Symbol Reference

This section explains the input variables and mathematical symbols used in the LEV equations.

Input Reference

  A vulnerability (e.g., a CVE) All equations
d A date (without time component) All equations
d0 First date with EPSS data for v All equations
dn The analysis date (usually today) LEV, Expected Exploited, Composite Probability
dkev Date of latest KEV (Known Exploited Vulnerabilities) list update KEV Exploited
LEV (v,d0,dn) Cumulative likelihood vulnerability v is exploited from d0 to dn All equations
EPSS (v,dn) EPSS score for vulnerability v on date dn Composite Probability
KEV (v,dn) 1.0 if v is in KEV list on dn, else 0 Composite Probability
scopedcves CVEs eligible for KEV tracking (where d0 ≤ dkev) KEV Exploited
cves CVEs considered in analysis (where d0 ≤ dn)  

Symbol Reference

Symbol Name Meaning
∀ Universal quantifier “For all” / “For every” similar to a programming loop.
Π Capital Pi A “Product notation” for repeated multiplication over a sequence, similar to how ∑ means repeated addition.
∑ Capital Sigma A “Cumulative notation” for repeated addition over a sequence.
∈ Element of “Is an element of” / “belongs to”. Indicates membership in a set.

Understanding the LEV Equations

LEV is described by the “NIST Cybersecurity White Paper 41” (CSWP 41) as a lower-bound probability (conservative estimate) that a vulnerability has been exploited​. It calculates the cumulative probability that a vulnerability has been exploited at least once during a given time window. Two similar equations are provided: LEV and LEV2. The first has been optimized to reduce CPU load.

In both the LEV and LEV2 equations, each term being multiplied by the product notation Π represents the probability that no exploitation occurred on a given day within the time window. This gives the cumulative probability of no exploitation ever. Subtracting this result from 1 inverts this probability, resulting in the probability of at least one exploitation over the time window.

The two LEV equations are described below:

The Performance Optimized LEV Equation

LEV uses a CVE’s historical EPSS scores, sampled every 30 days (epss(vi, di)), along with a compensating weight when the observation window is shorter than 30 days (i.e. dn​ < 30 days.

The LEV equation proposed in NIST CSWP 41

The High Resolution LEV2 Equation

LEV2 uses the complete historical EPSS time-series rather than sampling scores every 30 days. LEV2 applies weighting by dividing by the duration of the EPSS window (30 days). LEV2 increases the temporal resolution and produces a more reliable score. Short bursts of high EPSS cannot be skipped over, as can happen with the LEV equation shown above. Each daily EPSS value is scaled by 1/30 to preserve consistent risk density across the date range.

The LEV2 equation proposed in NIST CSWP 41

The Supplemental Equations

This section introduces the supplemental equations from NIST’s LEV whitepaper, their mathematical structure and potential use-cases.

Calculating a Composite Risk Score

The supplemental Composite Probability metric described in NIST’s LEV whitepaper simply selects the strongest available signal across three exploitation indicators: EPSS, inclusion in CISA’s (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) KEV list and LEV.

The Composite Probability equation proposed in NIST CSWP 41

By selecting the strongest intelligence signal, Composite Probability supports vulnerability prioritization. This helps reduce blind spots where one signal may be incomplete or outdated. It is especially valuable for prioritizing remediation in large enterprise vulnerability management programs, where choosing what to fix first is a critical challenge.

Estimating Total Number of Exploited CVEs

NIST’s whitepaper also suggests a method to estimate the total number of exploited CVEs during a specified time window and how to estimate the comprehensiveness of a repository of known exploited vulnerabilities.

The Expected Exploited Calculation

The Expected Exploited metric estimates the number of exploited CVEs within a given time window by summing all LEV probabilities from a defined set of vulnerabilities. The equation simply applies the sum (∑) of all LEV probabilities for a set of CVEs to estimate the total number of likely events. Although the NIST CSWP 41 describes it as a lower bound (conservative) estimate, there is no precedent for treating this basic technique as such. In probability theory, it is a fundamental principle that the expected number of events is equal to the sum of the individual event probabilities.

The Expected Exploited equation proposed in NIST CSWP 41

The KEV Exploited Calculation

The KEV Exploited metric estimates how many vulnerabilities are missing from a KEV catalog such as CISA KEV. Quantifying the gap between Expected Exploited and KEV Exploited gives insight into potential underreporting of a KEV catalog. The equation uses the same technique as the Expected Exploited equation above: the sum of all probabilities.

The KEV Exploited equation proposed in NIST CSWP 41

The Revelations of LEV

Here are some ways to visualize the value that LEV can provide to a vulnerability management program. The supplemental Composite Probability equation is best for visualizing the contribution that LEV makes to a more comprehensive CVE risk analysis. Therefore, the observations below all use Composite Probability unless otherwise stated.

The Estimated Total Number of Exploited CVEs

When considering all CVEs since ~1980 (273,979), LEV’s Expected Exploited metric shows that 14.6% of all CVEs (39,925) are likely to have been actively exploited in the wild. This implies that the vast majority of exploitation activity is not accounted for in any known KEV list (e.g. CISA KEV included 1,228 at the time of calculation). However, Expected Exploited does not account for how many individual CVEs may be uncovered at various EPSS thresholds.

The Number of Uncovered High Risk CVEs

To assess how LEV may impact an organization’s ability to uncover risk and prioritize remediation, it is useful to consider how many CVEs are elevated to high risk status at various probability thresholds. The chart below shows how many CVEs would become visible above 50% Composite Probability.

 

Visualizing Risk Migration Using Composite Probability

The Sankey diagram compares the number of CVEs in each risk level. The left side shows maximum EPSS scores, while the right side shows LEV’s Composite Probability. Because Composite Probability is used, by rule, no CVEs can move to a lower probability bucket. The chart reveals a significant shift from the lowest risk bucket to higher risk categories, along with a increase for all other groups when using Composite Probability to estimate risk.

Sankey diagram showing the migration CVEs between risk buckets when using max EPSS and LEV’s Composite Probability metric

Limitations and Criticisms of LEV

While LEV offers valuable insights, it’s important to examine its assumptions and potential shortcomings:

  • The LEV whitepaper does not present empirical validation or comparisons with other statistical models. However, a frequentist approach, using product-based probability, is a well-established method for calculating cumulative probability for a set of independent events.
  • LEV is described as a lower-bound probability. However, there is no academic precedent claiming that the mathematical constructs in NIST CSWP 41 are conservative lower-bounds estimates.
  • LEV is not an opaque prediction system in itself, but it is based on EPSS, which is not a fully public model. While LEV addresses some potential blind-spots, it does depend on EPSS. As EPSS improves, LEV will also benefit from these improvements. For example, EPSS v4 has added malware activity and endpoint detections to its “ground truth” of exploitation in the wild. This will reduce bias towards remotely accessible network vulnerabilities.
  • Defenders should not over-rely on LEV, EPSS, or CVSS to prioritize vulnerabilities. While evidence of active exploitation is the strongest risk signal, this evidence often comes post-hoc – too late for defenders to leverage.

Summary

LEV may offer some enhancements to vulnerability prioritization by aggregating historical EPSS signals into a cumulative exploitation probability. This approach increases visibility for CVEs with a historical duration of moderate EPSS scores. Perhaps the most useful metric is the proposed Composite Probability, which will select the strongest signal from LEV, EPSS, and CISA KEV exploitation status.

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Greenbone AG

Greenbone Audits for Compliance with the CIS Windows 11 Enterprise Benchmark”

Microsoft Windows remains the most widely used desktop operating system in enterprise environments – and also one of the most targeted by threat actors. Insecure configurations are a leading source of security breaches [1][2][3], often exploited to gain initial access [TA0001], escalate privileges [TA0004], steal credentials [TA0006], establish persistent access [TA0003], and move laterally within a network [TA0008]. Many national cybersecurity agencies continue to advocate strongly for organizations to enact policies to strengthen operating system (OS) baseline configurations [4][5][6][7][8].

Securing Windows 11 systems requires more than just patching known vulnerabilities. IT operations should start by deploying security hardened baseline images of Windows and periodically verify their configuration. This means adjusting many hidden or often overlooked settings of Microsoft Windows while disabling some features altogether. Hardened security controls include enforcing strong password and account lockout policies, disabling unnecessary system services like Remote Registry, applying application control rules via AppLocker, configuring advanced audit policies to monitor system activity and more.

Aligning with these enterprise IT cybersecurity goals, Greenbone is proud to announce the addition of CIS Microsoft Windows 11 Enterprise Benchmark v3.0.0 Level 1 (L1) auditing to our compliance capabilities. This latest enhancement allows our Enterprise feed customers to verify their Windows 11 configurations against the CIS compliance standard and adds to Greenbone’s growing arsenal of CIS compliance policies including Google Chrome, Apache, IIS, NGINX, MongoDB, Oracle, PostgreSQL, Windows, Linux and Docker [1][2]. Read on to find out more about Greenbone’s latest IT security detection capabilities.

Greenbone Adds CIS Microsoft Windows 11 Enterprise Benchmark

The CIS Microsoft Windows 11 Enterprise Benchmark v3.0.0 L1 is now available in the Greenbone Enterprise Feed. This benchmark defines a comprehensive set of security configurations – from Group Policy and registry hardening to built-in feature restrictions – designed to lock down Windows 11 Enterprise in line with industry best practices. With this new addition, Greenbone makes it easier to identify Microsoft Windows misconfigurations before attackers can exploit them.

Our Enterprise vulnerability feed leverages compliance policies to execute tests to verify each automatable CIS L1 requirement. These tests are grouped into scan configurations, allowing security teams to launch targeted assessments across their Windows 11 fleet. Whether aligning with internal security mandates or regulatory frameworks, Greenbone’s audit will confirm your Windows 11 Enterprise settings, ensuring that systems are locked down and that deprecated or risky features are disabled.

Windows Security Is Paramount

Microsoft Windows plays a prominent role in enterprise IT environments, serving as the backbone for endpoints, servers and domain infrastructure. But this ubiquity also makes it a prime target. Insecure Windows configurations can open the door to Remote Code Execution (RCE), credential theft and privilege escalation. A serious cyber breach can result in full domain compromise, ransomware attacks, loss of customer confidence, regulatory fines and even high cost legal action such as class action lawsuits when user data is leaked.

In recent years, national cybersecurity agencies – including Germany’s BSI [9], the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) [10] and the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security [11] among others [12][13] – have issued alerts emphasizing the need to harden OS security configurations and disable legacy features that attackers routinely exploit. The increasing frequency and sophistication of adversarial threat actors further underscores the need for proactive Windows security.

Misconfigurations in Windows can have a cascading impact, compromising both the local system and the wider network. That’s why hardening efforts must go beyond vulnerability patching to include robust configuration management. Greenbone’s new CIS Windows 11 Enterprise compliance policy gives defenders the tools they need to strengthen resilience against many critical IT security weaknesses.

How Does the CIS Windows 11 Benchmark Improve Cybersecurity?

The CIS Microsoft Windows 11 Enterprise Benchmark offers a structured approach to securing Microsoft Windows endpoints. It defines configuration settings that could be used for unauthorized access, privilege abuse and system compromise. The benchmark audits a wide range of policies including account security, system services, network configurations, application controls and administrative templates to reduce attack surface and improve system integrity.

The major sections of the CIS Windows 11 benchmark are:

  • Account Policies: Defines policies for password complexity, history, expiration and account lockout thresholds. These settings help enforce strong authentication hygiene and limit brute-force attacks.
  • Local Policies: Focuses on enforcing a wide array of local access controls and system behavior. It covers audit settings, user rights assignments (like who can log in locally or shut down the system) and security options (like guest account status, access tokens, network access, device drivers, firmware options and cryptography requirements) and more.
  • System Services: Reduces attack surface by limiting active system components. Recommends disabling or configuring Windows services that may be unnecessary or expose the system to risk (e.g., Remote Registry, FTP, Bluetooth, OpenSSH, Geolocation service and more).
  • Windows Defender Firewall with Advanced Security: Covers firewall configurations for domain, private and public profiles. Includes rules for logging, connection restrictions and blocking unsolicited inbound traffic to enforce network segmentation and traffic control.
  • Advanced Audit Policy Configuration: Provides granular auditing settings across categories like logon events, object access and policy changes to enhance visibility and compliance.
  • Administrative Templates (Computer): Covers Group Policy settings at the computer level, including UI restrictions, legacy protocol controls, SMB hardening, UAC behavior and device configuration.
  • Administrative Templates (User): Focuses on user-level policies affecting personalization, privacy, desktop behavior, Windows components, telemetry, cloud content, search and Microsoft Store access.

Greenbone Is a CIS Consortium Member

As a member of the CIS consortium, Greenbone is committed to adding additional scan configurations to attest CIS Benchmarks. All our CIS Benchmarks policies are aligned with CIS hardening guidelines and certified by CIS, ensuring maximum security for system audits. Greenbone also has a dedicated compliance view for the Greenbone Security Assistant (GSA) web-interface, to streamline the assessment process for organizations.

Summary

Securing Microsoft Windows 11 Enterprise requires more than patching vulnerabilities – it demands a disciplined approach to configuration management based on proven best practices. By hardening hidden system settings and disabling unnecessary features, security teams can prevent exploitation paths commonly used by attackers to deploy ransomware, exfiltrate data or establish persistence.

With added support for the CIS Microsoft Windows 11 Enterprise Benchmark v3.0.0, Greenbone strengthens its position as a leader in proactive cybersecurity, offering enterprises the tools they need to reduce risk, demonstrate compliance and stay resilient in an increasingly hostile digital landscape. Enterprise Feed subscribers can now audit and verify their Windows 11 configurations with precision and confidence

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Markus Feilner

Dwell time: Attackers Are Striking Faster and Disguising Themselves Better

Security experts are observing a worrying trend: the time to exploit (TTE), i.e. the time between a security vulnerability becoming known and being exploited by malicious actors, has been falling dramatically in recent times.

At the same time, attackers are becoming increasingly skilled at concealing their presence in a successfully hacked network. Experts refer to the time it takes to establish a foothold and then gain unauthorized access to company resources before being detected (and removed) as “dwell time”. The shorter this time, the better for those under attack. Even the most talented hacker needs time and can cause more (permanent) damage the longer they remain undetected and unobserved.

The Enemy Is Listening – and May Already Be There

Alarmingly, dwell time is increasingly reaching months or even years, as was the case with Sony and the US Office for Personal Management. There, attackers were able to operate undisturbed for more than twelve months. As a result, more than 10 terabytes of data were stolen from the Japanese technology group.

The fear of hidden intruders is great; after all, no one can say with certainty whether a malicious listener is already on their own network. It happens. In the 2015 Bundestag hack, for example, it was not the Bundestag’s own monitoring system that informed the German authorities about strange activities by third parties (Russian APT hacker groups) on the Bundestag network, but a “friendly” intelligence service. How long and how many actors had already been active in the network at that point remained unclear. The only thing that was clear was that there was more than one, and that the friendly intelligence services had been watching for some time.

Detection, Prevention and Response Increasingly Critical

This makes it more important to ensure that attackers do not gain access to the system in the first place. But this is becoming increasingly difficult: as reported by experts at Google’s Mandiant, among others, the response time available to companies and software operators between the discovery of a vulnerability and its exploitation has fallen rapidly in recent years, from 63 days in 2018 to just over a month in recent years.

Less and Less Time to Respond

In 2023, administrators had an average of only five days to detect and close vulnerabilities. Today it is already less than three days.

But that’s not all. In the past, security vulnerabilities were often exploited after patches became available, i.e., after experienced administrators had already secured their systems and installed the latest patches. These so-called “N-day vulnerabilities” should not really be a problem, as fixes are available.

Improved Discipline with Side Effects: Attackers Learn

Unfortunately, in the past, discipline (and awareness) was not as strong in many companies, and the issue was neglected, inadvertently contributing to the spread of automated attack methods such as worms and viruses. But there is good news here too: in 2022, attacks via N-day vulnerabilities still accounted for 38% of all attacks, but by 2023 this figure will fall to just 30%.

At first glance, this sounds good because administrators can find and fix known vulnerabilities for which patches are available more quickly and effectively. After years of poor discipline and a lack of update and patch strategies, the major and successful ransomware incidents have certainly also helped to convey the scope and importance of proper vulnerability management to the majority of those responsible.

Two-thirds Are now Zero-days

But there is also a downside to these figures: more than two-thirds of all attacks are now based on zero-day vulnerabilities, i.e., security gaps for which there is no patch yet – in 2023, this figure was as high as 70%. Criminal groups and attackers have reacted, learned and professionalized, automated and greatly accelerated their activities.

Without automation and standardization of processes, without modern, well-maintained and controlled open-source software, administrators can hardly keep up with developments. Who can claim to be able to respond to a new threat within three days?

Powerless? Not with Greenbone

When attackers can respond faster to new, previously unknown vulnerabilities and have also learned to hide themselves better, there can only be one answer: the use of professional vulnerability management. Greenbone solutions allow you to test your network automatically. Reports on the success of measures give administrators a quick overview of the current security status of your company.

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Greenbone AG

Availability of CVE Vulnerability Data in Greenbone Products

Greenbone AG has been consistently committed to an independent and resilient supply chain for the provision of vulnerability data for many years. Against the background of current discussions on the financing and sustainability of the CVE programme of the US organisation MITRE, we would like to inform you about our measures to ensure the continuous provision of important information about vulnerabilities in IT systems.

Since 1999, the CVE system has formed the central basis for the clear identification and classification of security vulnerabilities in IT. Funding for the central CVE database is currently secured by the US government until April 2026. Against this background, Greenbone took structural measures at an early stage to become less dependent on individual data sources.

With our OPENVAS brand, Greenbone is one of the world’s leading open source providers in the IT security ecosystem. We make an active contribution to the development of sustainable, decentralised infrastructures for the provision of vulnerability information – and are already focusing on future-proof concepts that effectively protect our customers from security risks.

Our sovereign data approach includes the following measures, among others:

  • Broad source diversification: Our Systems and our security research team monitor a large number of international information sources in order to be able to react promptly to new threats independently of the official CVE process – even if there is no official CVE entry yet.
  • Integration of alternative databases: We integrate independent vulnerability catalogues such as the European Vulnerability Database (EUVD) into our systems in order to create a stable and geographically diversified information basis.
  • Promotion of open standards: We actively support the dissemination of the CSAF standard (Common Security Advisory Framework), which enables the decentralised and federated distribution of vulnerability information.

These measures ensure that our customers retain unrestricted access to up-to-date vulnerability information, even in the event of changes in the international data ecosystem. This ensures that your IT systems remain fully protected in the future.

Greenbone stands for independent, sovereign and future-proof weak-point supply – even in a changing geopolitical environment.

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Greenbone AG

Intuitive and Clear: Complete Overview of the Security Situation of Your IT Infrastructure – for all Decision-Making Levels

Our newly developed product OPENVAS REPORT integrates the data from practically any number of Greenbone Enterprise Appliances and brings it into a clearly structured dashboard. The user-friendly and comprehensive interface considerably simplifies the protection and safeguarding of even large networks.

Greenbone AG has been developing leading open source technologies for automated vulnerability management since 2008. More than 100,000 installations worldwide rely on the Greenbone community and enterprise editions to strengthen their cyber resilience.

“OPENVAS REPORT stands for innovation from the open source market leader.”

With our new product, we are decisively shortening the path from current security knowledge to the ability to act – faster, clearer and more flexible than ever before,” explains Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner, CEO of Greenbone AG.

Recognize Hazardous Situations Faster and More Effectively

To protect your digital infrastructures, it is crucial to keep up to date with security-relevant events and to keep the response time to critical incidents as short as possible.

OPENVAS REPORT provides a daily updated, complete overview of the security situation of your IT infrastructure – for all decision-making levels.

Thanks to the connected Greenbone Enterprise Appliances, OPENVAS REPORT automatically recognizes computers and software in the company. Users can mark these with keywords and group and sort them as required – thus maintaining an overview even in very large networks.

Modern, User-friendly Dashboard

The OPENVAS REPORT Dashboard offers modern, user-friendly and highly flexible access for users who work with it on a daily basis. For example, filtering or sorting according to the general severity or specific risk of the vulnerabilities is possible. Companies can thus put together their own customized views, which always show an up-to-date picture of the risk situation in the company network.

Complete Overview

OPENVAS REPORT allows you to record and evaluate your company’s security situation at a glance. Thanks to its simple, clear user guidance, it prepares even the most complex data in a readable and understandable way, thus speeding up decision-making in critical situations.

With flexible and customizable filter options, OPENVAS REPORT considerably simplifies the day-to-day work of administrators and security officers.

Flexible Interfaces

The extensive export functions allow OPENVAS REPORT to be integrated even more deeply into the infrastructure, for example to process external data with OPENVAS REPORT.

Function Added value for your company
Comprehensive asset visibility Complete overview of all IT assets and their vulnerabilities in a single interface – for a complete assessment of your current security situation.
User-friendly dashboards A clearly structured, interactive dashboard makes complex vulnerability information understandable at a glance and accelerates well-founded decisions.
Flexible data processing A wide range of export, API and automation options can be seamlessly integrated into existing workflows and adapted to individual operational requirements.
Efficient data consolidation Aggregates results from multiple scanners and locations in a central database – reduces administrative effort and improves response time.
Customizable classification of vulnerabilities The severity levels and freely definable tags make it possible to precisely map internal compliance and risk models.
Extended reporting functions Target group-specific reports (C-Level, Audit, Operations) can be generated at the touch of a button: filters and drill-down links provide focused insights into critical security problems.

Learn More

Are you interested in a demo or a quote? Contact our sales team and find out more about OPENVAS REPORT. Write to us:sales@greenbone.net or contact us directly. We will be happy to help you!

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