Early Patching Cyber Security: What are the benefits? – Technologist

Hackers Weaponise PoC (Proof of Concept) Exploits Within 22 Minutes of Release – emphasising the need for early patching Cyber Security processes.

According to a 2024 Application Security report from Cloudfare, threat actors exploit publicly available proof-of-concept (PoC) exploits astonishingly quickly – sometimes within just 22 minutes of their release. From May 2023 to March 2024, this data underscores the urgency of timely cyber security measures and early patching cyber security processes.

Cloudflare, which handles an average of 57 million HTTP requests per second, reports increased scanning activity for disclosed CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures). Following these scans, attackers often proceed with command injections and attempts to leverage available PoCs.

A Rare Yet Critical Example of the need for early patching cyber security processes

One striking instance involves CVE-2024-27198, an authentication bypass flaw in JetBrains TeamCity. Within 22 minutes of the PoC exploit’s publication, an attacker deployed it, providing virtually no time for defenders to respond. This is a very rare incident but it does show the importance of always having a cyber security team ready to patch any flaws and deter any cyber threats.

This rapid exploitation emphasises the necessity for organisations to patch vulnerabilities promptly, whether it be via themselves or their IT Support and Cyber Security teams. The quick weaponisation of CVEs is partly driven by specialised threat actors who focus on specific categories and products, developing a deep understanding of how to exploit new vulnerabilities swiftly.

Combating Rapid Exploitation used by Cyber Criminals

To counter this speed, Cloudflare advocates using AI to develop detection rules rapidly. The firm combines human-written signatures with machine learning to balance low false positives with swift response times. This approach is essential as the speed of CVE exploitation often outpaces human capability to create and deploy patches.

Growing Cyber Threat Landscape

The report also highlights that distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks constitute 6.8% of all daily internet traffic, a notable increase from 6% in the previous year. During significant global attack events, malicious traffic can surge to 12% of all HTTP traffic. In Q1 2024, Cloudflare blocked an average of 209 billion cyber threats daily, marking an 86.6% year-over-year increase.

Get in touch with a Managed Cyber Security Provider

While the scenario of a PoC exploit being used within minutes is rare, it illustrates the critical importance of immediate patching. Organisations must remain vigilant and employ advanced technologies to mitigate these rapidly evolving threats.

For more detailed recommendations and insights, you can read the report from Cloudflare, which emphasises the importance of cyber security and working with a cyber security provider like Neuways. We have assisted many global companies to tighten their cyber security and work against threat actors, spanning companies in the East Midlands as well as the Far East and Europe. We will always work to help companies protect against the growing threat of cyber attacks.