• Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
MUST READ

UK NCA arrested four people over M&S, Co-op cyberattacks

 | 

PerfektBlue Bluetooth attack allows hacking infotainment systems of Mercedes, Volkswagen, and Skoda

 | 

Qantas data breach impacted 5.7 million individuals

 | 

DoNot APT is expanding scope targeting European foreign ministries

 | 

Nippon Steel Solutions suffered a data breach following a zero-day attack

 | 

Iranian group Pay2Key.I2P ramps Up ransomware attacks against Israel and US with incentives for affiliates

 | 

Hackers weaponize Shellter red teaming tool to spread infostealers

 | 

Microsoft Patch Tuesday security updates for July 2025 fixed a zero-day

 | 

Italian police arrested a Chinese national suspected of cyberespionage on a U.S. warrant

 | 

U.S. CISA adds MRLG, PHPMailer, Rails Ruby on Rails, and Synacor Zimbra Collaboration Suite flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

IT Worker arrested for selling access in $100M PIX cyber heist

 | 

New Batavia spyware targets Russian industrial enterprises

 | 

Taiwan flags security risks in popular Chinese apps after official probe

 | 

U.S. CISA adds Google Chromium V8 flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

Hunters International ransomware gang shuts down and offers free decryption keys to all victims

 | 

SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 52

 | 

Security Affairs newsletter Round 531 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

 | 

North Korea-linked threat actors spread macOS NimDoor malware via fake Zoom updates

 | 

Critical Sudo bugs expose major Linux distros to local Root exploits

 | 

Google fined $314M for misusing idle Android users' data

 | 
  • Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Security
  • IBM Watson will be used by NIST to assign CVSS scores to vulnerabilities

IBM Watson will be used by NIST to assign CVSS scores to vulnerabilities

Pierluigi Paganini November 06, 2018

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is planning to use Artificial Intelligence to assign the CVSS scores to reported vulnerabilities.

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) system provides a reference-method for publicly known information-security vulnerabilities and exposures.

A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) score between 0.0 and 10.0 that is assigned to each flaw according to its severity. The numerical score can then be associated with a qualitative representation (such as low, medium, high, and critical) to help organizations properly assess and prioritize the issue.

The NIST will use IBM’s Watson to automatically evaluate the level of severity for each reported vulnerability and assign a proper severity score.

The CVSS score depends on some factors such as the complexity of the attack for the exploitation of the flaw, the effect of the attack on confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the target system, the size of the audience impacted, whether the attack requires the user’s interaction, and whether the flaw could be exploited remotely.

Currently, the CVSS scores are assigned by experts at the NIST, but the organizations believe that the introduction of the AI could speed up the process and increase its efficiency.

NIST

According to Matthew Scholl, chief of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s computer security division, the AI will replace human analysts by October 2019.

An analyst takes 5 up to 10 minutes to assign a score to a simple vulnerability, but the time could be far longer for more complex issues. Scholl pointed out that the number of vulnerabilities publicly disclosed is increasing with each passing year.

“Earlier this year, NIST launched a pilot program using IBM’s Watson artificial intelligence system to pore through hundreds of thousands of historical CVSS scores from the institute’s human analysts, Scholl said.” reported NextGov.

Watson used the data to build its experience and use it to assign scores to new vulnerabilities.

“We started it just to get familiar with AI, so we could get our hands on it, learn about it, kind of put it in a lab and experiment,” Scholl said. “As we were doing it with this dataset we said: ‘Hey, this seems to be putting out results the same as our analysts are putting out.’”

The scores assigned by Watson were similar to the ones provided by analysts for not complex flaws of for vulnerabilities with many similarities to previously reported ones.

“The Watson system is great at assigning scores for vulnerabilities where there’s a long paper trail of human-assigned scores for highly similar vulnerabilities. In those cases, the Watson score will be within the small range of variance between what two different human analysts would assign, say 7.2 versus 7.3 on a 10-point scale, Scholl said.” continues the NextGov.

“When the vulnerability is new and complex or highly novel, like the Specter vulnerability discovered in 2017, Watson fares far worse, Scholl said. In those cases, a human analyst will take over.” 

IBM Watson also releases a confidence percentage for each CVSS score, when the percentage is under a specific threshold it is requested the analysis of a human analyst.

They are also looking into using the technology in other NIST areas.

[adrotate banner=”9″] [adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – CVSS scores, NIST)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]


facebook linkedin twitter

AI CVSS IBM NIST Pierluigi Paganini Security Affairs Watson

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini July 10, 2025
UK NCA arrested four people over M&S, Co-op cyberattacks
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini July 10, 2025
PerfektBlue Bluetooth attack allows hacking infotainment systems of Mercedes, Volkswagen, and Skoda
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

Subscribe to my email list and stay
up-to-date!

    recent articles

    UK NCA arrested four people over M&S, Co-op cyberattacks

    Cyber Crime / July 10, 2025

    PerfektBlue Bluetooth attack allows hacking infotainment systems of Mercedes, Volkswagen, and Skoda

    Hacking / July 10, 2025

    Qantas data breach impacted 5.7 million individuals

    Data Breach / July 10, 2025

    DoNot APT is expanding scope targeting European foreign ministries

    APT / July 10, 2025

    Nippon Steel Solutions suffered a data breach following a zero-day attack

    Data Breach / July 09, 2025

    To contact me write an email to:

    Pierluigi Paganini :
    pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

    LEARN MORE

    QUICK LINKS

    • Home
    • Cyber Crime
    • Cyber warfare
    • APT
    • Data Breach
    • Deep Web
    • Digital ID
    • Hacking
    • Hacktivism
    • Intelligence
    • Internet of Things
    • Laws and regulations
    • Malware
    • Mobile
    • Reports
    • Security
    • Social Networks
    • Terrorism
    • ICS-SCADA
    • POLICIES
    • Contact me

    Copyright@securityaffairs 2024

    We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
    Cookie SettingsAccept All
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT