Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Application Security

FIRST Announces CVSS Version 3.1

The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) on Friday announced version 3.1 of the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).

CVSS is a widely adopted standard for rating the severity of software vulnerabilities, and it provides a framework for communicating the characteristics and impact of security flaws.

The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) on Friday announced version 3.1 of the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS).

CVSS is a widely adopted standard for rating the severity of software vulnerabilities, and it provides a framework for communicating the characteristics and impact of security flaws.

CVSS 3.1When it released CVSS v3 in June 2015, FIRST said the new version was adapted for more modern concerns, it promoted consistency in scoring, and included scoring tips meant to provide better guidance to users.

CVSS v3.1 aims to simplify and improve upon the previous version in an effort to make it even easier to adopt by the security community.

“Updates include clarification of the definitions and explanation of existing base metrics such as Attack Vector, Privileges Required, Scope, and Security Requirements,” FIRST explained. “A new standard method of extending CVSS, called the CVSS Extensions Framework, allows a scoring provider to include additional metrics and metric groups while retaining the official Base, Temporal, and Environmental Metrics. The additional metrics allow industry sectors such as privacy, safety, automotive, healthcare, etc., to score factors that are outside the core CVSS standard.”

Cybersecurity professionals specializing in healthcare and industrial systems have long argued that the current version of CVSS can generate misleading scores that do not accurately reflect the impact of a vulnerability by failing to take into account specific factors.

For CVSS v3.1, FIRST provides a specification document, a calculator and information on using it, a user guide, and examples. The CVSS Glossary of Terms has also been updated to include all new terms.

Later this year, FIRST also hopes to offer an online training course that details CVSS and version 3.1, and which even users who have had no prior experience with the system can understand. The same course is currently available for CVSS v3.0.

“The primary goal of CVSS is to provide a deterministic and repeatable way to score the severity of vulnerabilities across many different constituencies,” said a co-chair of the CVSS Special Interest Group (SIG).

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

Related: Risk-Based Vulnerability Management is a Must for Security & Compliance

Related: The Top Vulnerabilities Exploited by Cybercriminals

Related: Tenable Adds ‘Predictive Prioritization’ to Vulnerability Management Offering

Related: Many ICS Vulnerability Advisories Contain Errors

Written By

Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a managing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.

Click to comment

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join us as we delve into the transformative potential of AI, predictive ChatGPT-like tools and automation to detect and defend against cyberattacks.

Register

As cybersecurity breaches and incidents escalate, the cyber insurance ecosystem is undergoing rapid and transformational change.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Application Security

Cycode, a startup that provides solutions for protecting software source code, emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday with $4.6 million in seed funding.

Vulnerabilities

Less than a week after announcing that it would suspended service indefinitely due to a conflict with an (at the time) unnamed security researcher...

CISO Strategy

SecurityWeek spoke with more than 300 cybersecurity experts to see what is bubbling beneath the surface, and examine how those evolving threats will present...

CISO Conversations

Joanna Burkey, CISO at HP, and Kevin Cross, CISO at Dell, discuss how the role of a CISO is different for a multinational corporation...

Data Breaches

OpenAI has confirmed a ChatGPT data breach on the same day a security firm reported seeing the use of a component affected by an...

CISO Conversations

In this issue of CISO Conversations we talk to two CISOs about solving the CISO/CIO conflict by combining the roles under one person.

Risk Management

The supply chain threat is directly linked to attack surface management, but the supply chain must be known and understood before it can be...

IoT Security

A group of seven security researchers have discovered numerous vulnerabilities in vehicles from 16 car makers, including bugs that allowed them to control car...