A standard rating for the importance of security flaws in commercial software has been developed to help IT system administrators prioritise the dozens of software “patches” they receive from software houses each week.
The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) was developed by a consortium that includes Microsoft and antivirus company Symantec. “There are just too many vulnerabilities for managers to pay attention to all of them,” says Bruce Schneier, a security consultant with Counterpane Security in Mountain View, California.
CVSS assesses a vulnerability according to seven characteristics, including the threat of data loss and system crashes, and the extent to…
