CVSS vs. VPR

Tenable uses CVSS scores and a dynamic Tenable-calculated Vulnerability Priority Rating (VPR) to quantify the risk and urgency of a vulnerability.

CVSS

Tenable uses and displays third-party Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) values retrieved from the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) to describe risk associated with vulnerabilities.

Tenable assigns all vulnerabilities a severity (Info, Low, Medium, High, or Critical) based on the vulnerability's static CVSSv2 or CVSSv3 score, depending on your configuration. For more information, see Organizations.

Tenable.sc analysis pages provide summary information about vulnerabilities using the following CVSS categories.

Severity	CVSSv2 Range	CVSSv3 Range
Critical	The plugin's highest vulnerability CVSSv2 score is 10.0.	The plugin's highest vulnerability CVSSv3 score is between 9.0 and 10.0.
High	The plugin's highest vulnerability CVSSv2 score is between 7.0 and 9.9.	The plugin's highest vulnerability CVSSv3 score is between 7.0 and 8.9.
Medium	The plugin's highest vulnerability CVSSv2 score is between 4.0 and 6.9.	The plugin's highest vulnerability CVSSv3 score is between 4.0 and 6.9.
Low	The plugin's highest vulnerability CVSSv2 score is between 0.1 and 3.9.	The plugin's highest vulnerability CVSSv3 score is between 0.1 and 3.9.
Info	The plugin's highest vulnerability CVSSv2 score is 0. - or - The plugin does not search for vulnerabilities.	The plugin's highest vulnerability CVSSv3 score is 0. - or - The plugin does not search for vulnerabilities.

Vulnerability Priority Rating

Tenable calculates a dynamic VPR for most vulnerabilities. The VPR is a dynamic companion to the data provided by the vulnerability's CVSS score, since Tenable updates the VPR to reflect the current threat landscape. VPR values range from 0.1-10.0, with a higher value representing a higher likelihood of exploit.

For a demonstration on VPR, see the following video:

VPR Category	VPR Range
Critical	9.0 to 10.0
High	7.0 to 8.9
Medium	4.0 to 6.9
Low	0.1 to 3.9

Note: Vulnerabilities without CVEs in the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) (for example, many vulnerabilities with the Info severity) do not receive a VPR. Tenable recommends remediating these vulnerabilities according to their CVSS-based severity.

Note: You cannot edit VPR values.

Tenable.sc provides new and updated VPR values through the Tenable.sc feed. For more information, see Edit Plugin and Feed Schedules.

Tenable recommends resolving vulnerabilities with the highest VPRs first. You can view VPR scores and summary data in:

• The Tenable-provided Vulnerability Priority Rating (VPR) Summary dashboard, described in Dashboards.
• The Vulnerability Summary, Vulnerability List, and Vulnerability Detail List tools, described in View Vulnerabilities by Plugin.

VPR Key Drivers

You can view the following key drivers to explain a vulnerability's VPR.

Note: Tenable does not customize these values for your organization; VPR key drivers reflect a vulnerability's global threat landscape.

Key Driver	Description
Vulnerability Age	The number of days since the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) published the vulnerability.
CVSSv3 Impact Score	The NVD-provided CVSSv3 impact score for the vulnerability. If the NVD did not provide a score, Tenable.sc displays a Tenable-predicted score.
Exploit Code Maturity	The relative maturity of a possible exploit for the vulnerability based on the existence, sophistication, and prevalence of exploit intelligence from internal and external sources (e.g., Reversinglabs, Exploit-db, Metasploit, etc.). The possible values (High, Functional, PoC, or Unproven) parallel the CVSS Exploit Code Maturity categories.
Product Coverage	The relative number of unique products affected by the vulnerability: Low, Medium, High, or Very High.
Threat Sources	A list of all sources (e.g., social media channels, the dark web, etc.) where threat events related to this vulnerability occurred. If the system did not observe a related threat event in the past 28 days, the system displays No recorded events.
Threat Intensity	The relative intensity based on the number and frequency of recently observed threat events related to this vulnerability: Very Low, Low, Medium, High, or Very High.
Threat Recency	The number of days (0-180) since a threat event occurred for the vulnerability.

Threat Event Examples

Common threat events include:

• An exploit of the vulnerability
• A posting of the vulnerability exploit code in a public repository
• A discussion of the vulnerability in mainstream media
• Security research about the vulnerability
• A discussion of the vulnerability on social media channels
• A discussion of the vulnerability on the dark web and underground
• A discussion of the vulnerability on hacker forums