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How Does Edgescan Use SSVC Analysis To Prioritize Vulnerability Actions?

Edgescan incorporates SSVC into AI Insights to provide customers with prioritized vulnerability actions tailored to their environment. This enables teams to move beyond theoretical severity scores and act on what matters most in practice.

Version Number: v1.0.0

Published Date: 10 Sept 2025

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What is SSVC?

SSVC (Stakeholder-Specific Vulnerability Categorization) is a decision-making framework developed by Carnegie Mellon’s SEI to help organizations prioritize vulnerability remediation based on impact, exploitation status, exposure, and mission context. Unlike simple scoring systems (e.g., CVSS), SSVC provides a structured way to decide whether to Act, Track, Attend, or Defer remediation.

Edgescan incorporates SSVC into AI Insights to provide customers with prioritized vulnerability actions tailored to their environment. This enables teams to move beyond theoretical severity scores and act on what matters most in practice.

How it works in Edgescan?

  1. Vulnerability Ingestion

    • Edgescan scans and validates vulnerabilities across assets (apps, APIs, networks, cloud, mobile).

  2. Contextual Enrichment
    AI Insights enriches findings with external intelligence, including:

    • Known exploitation in the wild (CISA KEV, EPSS, threat feeds)

    • Exposure of the asset (internet-facing vs internal)

    • Business criticality of the asset (based on customer configuration and tagging)

  3. Decision Tree Mapping
    Each vulnerability is processed through the SSVC decision model, factoring:

    • Exploitation status (active, proof-of-concept, none)

    • Technical impact (system compromise, data exposure, denial of service)

    • Exposure (reachable externally, restricted, or segmented)

    • Mission/business context (critical system vs low-value asset)

  4. Action Recommendation
    Based on the decision model, Edgescan presents a clear recommendation for each vulnerability:

    • Act: Immediate remediation required

    • Attend: Address soon, but not urgent

    • Track: Monitor for changes in exploitation or risk

    • Defer: Low priority, can be safely postponed

Features & Benefits

  • Actionable Prioritization: Moves beyond generic severity scores to provide tailored remediation guidance.

  • Context-Aware: Factors in both technical severity and business impact.

  • Threat-Informed: Incorporates real-world exploitation data to ensure high-risk vulnerabilities are not missed.

  • Resource Efficiency: Helps teams focus effort on vulnerabilities that present the most significant operational risk.

  • Defensible Reporting: Provides a clear, framework-based rationale for why certain vulnerabilities were fixed first.

Common Use-Cases

  • Vulnerability Management: Decide which vulnerabilities should be patched immediately versus monitored or deferred.

  • Board and Executive Reporting: Present vulnerability decisions aligned with a recognized framework for transparency.

  • Risk Governance: Demonstrate a defensible, systematic approach to remediation prioritization.

  • Operational Efficiency: Reduce wasted time on low-impact vulnerabilities by focusing on SSVC “Act” and “Attend” items.

  • Continuous Risk Assessment: Reassess vulnerabilities as new exploitation data emerges, updating SSVC recommendations dynamically.