A state government agency using Nucleus Security’s Insights faced severe inefficiencies in vulnerability management, drowning in tens of thousands of CVEs flagged as 'high' or 'critical' by CVSS scores over 95% of which were never exploited. This led to wasted resources, prolonged patch backlogs, and unaddressed, exploitable weaknesses in production systems. Before adopting Nucleus Insights, the agency struggled with manual triage, high operational toil, and a bloated backlog of false positives, exposing it to avoidable risks.Post-implementation, the agency reduced high-risk vulnerabilities by 50% in three months by focusing only on actively exploited threats, cutting manual triage effort by 80%. Despite this improvement, the initial state revealed critical gaps: thousands of misprioritized vulnerabilities left systems exposed to attacks targeting the smaller subset of weaponized flaws. The financial impact included a 20% cyber insurance premium reduction due to lowered risk, but the pre-Insights period highlighted systemic failures in threat prioritization, nearly leading to breaches from unpatched, high-exploitability vulnerabilities. The delay in remediation (previously months-long) could have escalated to data leaks, operational disruptions, or reputational damage had the tool not intervened.
Source: https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2025/09/04/nucleus-insights-vulnerability-management/
TPRM report: https://www.rankiteo.com/company/nucleussec
"id": "nuc5755757090425",
"linkid": "nucleussec",
"type": "Vulnerability",
"date": "9/2025",
"severity": "85",
"impact": "4",
"explanation": "Attack with significant impact with customers data leaks"{'affected_entities': [{'industry': 'Public Sector',
'name': 'State Government Agency (Anonymous)',
'type': 'Government'},
{'name': 'Enterprise Customer (Anonymous)',
'size': 'Large (~6M vulnerability findings)',
'type': 'Private'}],
'description': 'CISOs face an overwhelming volume of vulnerability data (tens '
'of thousands of new CVEs annually), with only a small '
'fraction ever weaponized. Traditional reliance on CVSS scores '
'misprioritizes vulnerabilities, leading to wasted resources, '
'patch backlogs, and unaddressed critical flaws. Nucleus '
"Security's AI-driven 'Nucleus Insights' product addresses "
'this by combining threat intelligence with analyst validation '
'to identify actively exploited or high-risk CVEs, reducing '
'false urgency and improving remediation efficiency. Early '
'adopters, including a state government agency and an '
'enterprise with ~6M findings, reported significant reductions '
'in high-risk vulnerabilities (50% and 99.9% respectively), '
'faster mean-time-to-remediate (months → days), and cost '
'savings (e.g., 20% cyber insurance premium reduction). The '
'tool integrates with existing workflows, automating '
'ticketing, SLA enforcement, and patching, with 70-80% of its '
'top-priority flags exploited within 30-60 days.',
'impact': {'operational_impact': ['Wasted resources on low-risk CVSS '
"'high/critical' vulnerabilities",
'Long patch backlogs',
'Exploitable weaknesses left in '
'production']},
'lessons_learned': ['CVSS scores alone are ineffective for prioritization '
"(95% of 'high' scores never exploited).",
'Focus on real-world exploitability reduces noise and '
'improves remediation efficiency.',
'Automation and threat intelligence integration (e.g., '
'Nucleus Insights) can cut manual triage effort by 80%.',
'Precision in vulnerability management (70-80% of '
'top-priority flags exploited within 30-60 days) '
'outperforms volume-based approaches.',
'Scalable workflows (e.g., automated ticketing, SLA '
'enforcement) turn vulnerability management into '
'measurable outcomes.'],
'post_incident_analysis': {'corrective_actions': ['Implemented Nucleus '
'Insights for AI-driven, '
'analyst-validated threat '
'intelligence.',
'Automated vulnerability '
'ticketing and SLA '
'enforcement via ITSM '
'integration.',
'Reduced high-risk '
'vulnerability volume by '
'focusing on exploitability '
'(50-99.9% reduction).',
'Achieved faster MTTR '
'(months → days/weeks) and '
'measurable cost savings '
'(e.g., 20% cyber insurance '
'premium reduction).'],
'root_causes': ['Over-reliance on CVSS scores for '
'prioritization, leading to '
'misallocated resources.',
'Lack of real-time threat '
'intelligence to identify actively '
'exploited vulnerabilities.',
'Manual triage processes causing '
'delays and backlogs.',
'Disconnected vulnerability '
'management workflows (no '
'automation or SLA enforcement).']},
'recommendations': ['Adopt AI-driven threat intelligence tools (e.g., Nucleus '
'Insights) to filter CVEs based on active exploitation '
'signals.',
'Integrate threat intelligence with existing workflows '
'(ITSM, patch management) to automate remediation.',
'Prioritize vulnerabilities with evidence of '
'weaponization (dark web chatter, exploit repositories, '
'malware reports).',
'Replace CVSS-centric prioritization with context-aware '
'risk scoring (business criticality + exploitability).',
'Measure outcomes like MTTR, high-risk vulnerability '
'reduction, and cyber insurance premium savings to '
'demonstrate value.'],
'references': [{'source': 'Nucleus Security (Jeff Gouge, CISO)'}],
'response': {'enhanced_monitoring': ['Dark web forums',
'Exploit repositories',
'Malware reports',
'Vendor advisories (via Nucleus '
'Insights)'],
'remediation_measures': ['AI-driven threat intelligence (Nucleus '
'Insights) to prioritize '
'exploited/weaponized CVEs',
'Automated ticketing and SLA '
'enforcement for critical '
'vulnerabilities',
'Reduction of high-risk vulnerability '
'volume by 50% (state agency) and 99.9% '
'(enterprise)',
'Mean-time-to-remediate (MTTR) reduced '
'from months to days/weeks',
'Integration with ITSM systems for '
'workflow automation'],
'third_party_assistance': ['Nucleus Security (Nucleus Insights '
'product)']},
'title': 'Overload of Vulnerability Data and Ineffective Prioritization '
'Leading to Exploitable Weaknesses in Production',
'type': ['Vulnerability Mismanagement',
'Threat Intelligence Gap',
'Process Inefficiency']}