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Recurring software flaws persist because preventing a defect in future products and reducing risk in systems already deployed are different jobs. CISA’s Vulnerability Review for fiscal years 2024 and 2025 highlights both sides: manufacturers need to prevent repeat weakness classes, while operators must find exposed assets, prioritize risk, patch, and address unsupported technology. Its value for security teams is as an operational baseline—not proof that AI caused vulnerability trends or changed exploitation rates.
What CISA’s FY2024–2025 review says—and what it does not
CISA presents the review as a resource for understanding vulnerability root causes and preventing recurring weaknesses. The agency also describes it as a baseline ahead of wider AI-enabled vulnerability discovery. That framing does not establish that AI caused the findings in the review, or that AI has already changed exploitation rates.
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The findings described by CISA are qualitative: simple, known vulnerabilities and recurring defect classes remain relevant, while weak patching and continued use of end-of-support technology can leave systems exposed. The review description does not provide a verified statistic here that would support a vulnerability count, percentage, ranking, or trend claim.
The operational point is that a vulnerability is not just a ticket to close. Repeated defect patterns can point to product-development problems, while exposure and delayed remediation determine whether an organization remains at risk. These causes may overlap, but they are not interchangeable: a manufacturer’s recurring coding weakness and an operator’s unpatched system require different interventions.
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Why familiar weaknesses keep creating exposure
Some vulnerability classes recur because they are preventable design or implementation problems. CISA and FBI guidance calls attention to weaknesses such as SQL injection and memory-safety issues. If a class of defect is repeatedly introduced into products, fixing individual instances after release may reduce immediate risk without preventing the next occurrence.
Operational practices also shape whether known weaknesses remain exploitable. A patch that is available but not applied does not protect an exposed system. End-of-support technology creates a different problem: the organization may lack a reliable path to security updates, so the risk cannot be managed as though an ordinary patch is simply waiting to be installed.
These patterns call for two feedback loops: remediate vulnerable deployed systems, and use repeat findings to push for changes in how products are designed, built, and maintained.
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Use the four dimensions CISA names to prioritize
CISA identifies four dimensions for comparing vulnerability risk. They are useful questions for triage, not a complete scoring formula. A team still has to apply its own asset context, business impact, and capacity to remediate.
| Dimension | Question for the operations team |
|---|---|
| Exposure status | Is the affected asset reachable or otherwise exposed in the organization’s environment? |
| Known Exploited Vulnerability (KEV) status | Does CISA’s KEV catalog record the vulnerability as known exploited? |
| Potential for automated exploitation | Could an attacker exploit it at scale using automation? |
| Technical impact | What could successful exploitation do to the affected system or organization? |
A vulnerability’s priority should reflect the combination of these factors rather than its severity label alone. For example, exposure and known exploitation can make a weakness urgent to address, while technical impact helps teams understand the consequences of successful exploitation. The four dimensions help structure that judgment; they do not remove the need to know which assets matter and whether remediation is feasible.
Turn the criteria into an operational cycle
The following is an operational interpretation of CISA’s dimensions and recommendations, not a sequence CISA prescribes verbatim. It helps connect vulnerability review to work teams can assign, track, and verify.
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- Track assets and exposure. Maintain an inventory that lets the team identify affected systems and determine whether they are exposed. Without that context, a vulnerability list cannot reliably show which systems need attention first.
- Check for known exploitation. Compare applicable vulnerabilities with CISA’s KEV catalog and record whether an entry is listed. Use the current catalog when making decisions; its contents can change.
- Assess automation potential and impact. Consider whether exploitation could be scaled and what a successful attack could do in the specific environment. Combine these judgments with exposure and KEV status rather than treating any one dimension as a universal score.
- Route and verify remediation. Assign work according to risk and available remediation capacity, then verify that the affected systems were actually fixed or otherwise addressed. Keep exceptions visible rather than treating an uncompleted patch as resolved.
- Manage unsupported systems and recurring defects. Where end-of-support technology cannot receive ordinary security updates, track the exception and the remaining exposure. When the same defect class recurs, send that pattern to product owners and manufacturers so it can be prevented in future releases.
Secure by Design moves part of the responsibility upstream
Secure by Design means that product manufacturers should prioritize security through development instead of leaving customers to absorb the cost of recurring defects after release. In its January 17, 2025 release announcing updated guidance with the FBI, CISA stated: “CISA and FBI urge software manufacturers to reduce customer risk by prioritizing security throughout the product development process.”
The updated Product Security Bad Practices guidance is voluntary. It is aimed at software manufacturers supporting critical infrastructure and encourages all manufacturers to avoid the listed practices. The January 2025 update incorporated public comments and added context on memory-safe languages, KEV patching timelines, and additional bad practices.
The March 2024 CISA and FBI SQL injection alert urged senior executives to formally review code and eliminate that vulnerability class in current and future products. The broader lesson is to treat repeat weaknesses as product-quality and development-process concerns, not only as a series of customer patch notices.
Operators still have to protect systems already in use
Upstream responsibility does not make downstream exposure management optional. CISA’s joint guidance recommends patching and vulnerability management, and its review describes poor patching and continued use of end-of-support technology as operational contributors to exposure. Security teams still need to know what they operate, identify affected systems, make remediation decisions, and confirm that changes took effect.
CISA urges organizations to prioritize KEV entries, but the binding remediation requirements in Binding Operational Directive 22-01 apply specifically to Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies. They are not a universal legal deadline for every organization. Other organizations can use KEV status as a strong prioritization signal without treating the federal directive as binding on them. The review also references BOD 26-04 in connection with its prioritization criteria; that is distinct from BOD 22-01’s federal KEV remediation requirements.
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Make recurring vulnerability classes a leadership concern
The 2023 multi-agency advisory on top routinely exploited vulnerabilities asks business leaders to make security responsibilities explicit and direct teams toward eliminating recurring vulnerability classes. That emphasis matters because the work crosses organizational boundaries: engineering and product leadership can reduce repeated defects, while security and IT operations manage risk in deployed systems.
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Leadership can make the distinction actionable by assigning responsibility for both paths. Product owners and manufacturers should be accountable for reducing repeat defect classes; operators should be accountable for exposure visibility, risk-based remediation, and tracked exceptions. Treating each new finding only as a one-off patch can leave the conditions that produced the next finding untouched.
How to read the review as a baseline
The FY2024–2025 review offers a way to think about recurring weaknesses and the work needed to reduce their consequences: prevent repeat flaws in products, and manage the risk of vulnerable systems already in service. Its four dimensions—exposure, KEV status, automation potential, and technical impact—help organize prioritization, but teams must supply their own asset and operational context.
It should not be read as a causal account of AI’s effect on vulnerability discovery or exploitation. Nor does Secure by Design replace patching, inventory, or incident response. It shifts some responsibility upstream while leaving operators with concrete work to do.
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