In 2024, over 29,000 vulnerabilities were published in the National Vulnerability Database (NVD). But not all of them are equally dangerous. In fact, CISA’s KEV list highlights just a fraction of these, focusing only on those confirmed to be actively exploited in the wild.
This gap between “known” and “exploitable” is where many organizations stumble. When faced with thousands of alerts, the real challenge is not how many vulnerabilities exist, but which ones actually matter
This is where the distinction between exploitable and non-exploitable vulnerabilities becomes critical.
What Is an Exploitable Vulnerability?
An exploitable vulnerability is a security flaw that attackers can actively take advantage of in the real world. It usually has:
- A known exploit (publicly available code or technique)
- A clear path to execution under current system conditions
- The potential to cause serious harm, like code execution, privilege escalation, or data exfiltration
Example:
For instance, CVE-2025-24813, a critical Apache Tomcat vulnerability was actively exploited just 30 hours after its public disclosure on March 10, 2025, with confirmed attacks observed by March 12.
What Is Non-Exploitable Vulnerability?
A non-exploitable vulnerability is a known flaw in your code or dependencies, but one that cannot currently be abused under real-world conditions. It exists, but lacks the necessary conditions for exploitation, such as:
- The vulnerable code is not used or invoked in production
- Required inputs or user interaction are absent
- Runtime protections like WAF, RASP, or strict access controls block exploitation
Example:
A vulnerability in a backend API endpoint that is not exposed externally, requires admin privileges, and is protected by a WAF rule would be considered non-exploitable. It is technically present, but attackers cannot reach or use it under your current environment.
Why This Distinction Cannot Be Ignored
Treating every vulnerability as urgent can backfire without exploitability context:
- Patching delays: Teams spend days fixing vulnerabilities that are unreachable or unused in production environments.
- Alert fatigue: Over 70% of security alerts are ignored due to lack of prioritization, leading to missed real threats.
- Hidden risk: Exploitable vulnerabilities with moderate CVSS scores often get buried under non-exploitable “critical” vulnerabilities.
- Compliance gaps: Patch all critical vulnerabilities strategies meet audit checklists but fail to stop real-world attacks exploiting reachable CVE
Real-World Examples
- CVE-2025-4123 (Grafana Ghost Vulnerability) A session fixation vulnerability allowed unauthenticated attackers to take over user accounts by crafting session cookies. No credentials or user interaction were required, making this a high-risk exploit path across internet-facing Grafana instances.
- CVE-2024-4577 (PHP-CGI on Windows Servers): A Unicode handling vulnerability in PHP-CGI enabled remote code execution on Windows servers via specially crafted arguments. Already observed in exploitation campaigns, it affected many legacy deployments still running CGI mode in production.
These vulnerabilities were not only critical in severity; they were easy to weaponize, highly scalable, and had significant real-world consequences.
Why All Vulnerabilities Are Not Equally Actionable
Scanners and vulnerability databases like NVD or CISA’s KEV catalog are essential for comprehensive visibility. They detect known vulnerabilities across your environment; ensuring nothing is missed. However, not everything flagged is immediately exploitable in your setup.
That is because exploitability depends on your specific environment:
- Unused vulnerable code: A library may have a known vulnerabilities, but if its functions are not called at runtime, exploitation is not possible.
- Input isolation: Application logic, routing, or API design may prevent untrusted inputs from reaching the vulnerable code path.
- Runtime defenses: Solutions like AppTrana WAAP block known exploit patterns before they hit the backend, reducing exposure.
- Privileged access required: Some vulnerabilities require admin-level access, which external attackers do not have.
- User interaction dependency: Vulnerabilities needing user clicks or downloads may never occur in your business workflows.
- CVSS limitations: Scores may reflect theoretical risk, not operational reality.
This is especially relevant in cloud-native, microservice, or API-driven environments, where architecture and isolation controls reduce the actual exploit surface.
How to Determine If a Vulnerability Is Exploitable
Identifying whether a vulnerability is present is only the first step. The real question is whether it can actually be exploited in your environment. To answer that, you need to go beyond severity scores and assess runtime conditions, asset exposure, and code behavior.
1. Use CVSS as a Starting Point
The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) helps estimate exploitability using metrics like:
- Attack Vector (AV): Can the vulnerability be exploited over the network, or does it require local access?
- Attack Complexity (AC): Are special conditions or configurations needed?
- Privileges Required (PR): Does exploitation require elevated user rights?
- User Interaction (UI): Is user action necessary to trigger the exploit?
These indicators offer a baseline view of risk, but they operate under general assumptions. They do not account for how your applications are built, deployed, or accessed.
A high CVSS score is not always a high priority.
For example:
- A critical vulnerability on an internal, isolated system may pose minimal risk.
- A medium-severity vulnerability on a public-facing application could lead to real damage.
That is why you need more than just a score, you need context-aware analysis.
2. Consider Exposure and Context
A vulnerability severity score tells you the potential impact, but not whether that vulnerability is reachable or active in your systems.
Ask these questions:
- Is the vulnerable component deployed in production?
- Is it exposed to public traffic or confined to internal systems?
- Is the system behind strong access controls or isolated from the internet?
This contextual information is crucial in determining whether the vulnerability actually poses a risk.
3. Perform Reachability Analysis
It is not enough for a vulnerability to exist in code; reachability analysis checks if it can actually be accessed and exploited in your application’s setup.
- It verifies if the vulnerable component or library is loaded and active during runtime.
- It checks whether the vulnerable function is ever invoked by the application.
- It traces if any external input can flow through the vulnerable code path.
4. Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEVs)
While reachability tells you what is exploitable in your environment, KEVs tell you what is already being targeted globally. If a vulnerability appears in the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, it is already being actively exploited in real-world attacks, regardless of its CVSS score.
Monitoring KEVs helps security teams:
- Prioritize vulnerabilities that are being used in active campaigns
- Reassess vulnerabilities previously considered non-critical
- Stay ahead of attacker tactics that evolve faster than internal patch cycles
5. Align with Business Context
Technical risk is one side of the equation; business impact is the other.
Evaluate:
- How critical is the affected asset to operations?
- What type of data does it handle (e.g., PII, payment, medical)?
- Would an exploit result in service disruption, compliance violation, or financial loss?
Use this context to adjust remediation priorities and focus on vulnerabilities that could truly impact your organization.
AcuRisQ built-in Indusface WAS, go beyond CVSS. Instead of just flagging vulnerabilities based on severity, AcuRisQ considers your actual deployment context, how exposed the asset is, whether the vulnerability is discoverable at runtime, and how critical the affected component is to your business.
This allows teams to prioritize based on true exploitability and business impact, not just theoretical severity. It answers not just “What is the CVE score?” but “Does this really matter to us right now?”
Why Non-Exploitable Vulnerabilities Still Deserve Attention
Even if a vulnerability cannot be exploited today, it still carries risk:
- Future changes can introduce exposure: Code refactors, misconfigurations, or new features may unintentionally make the vulnerability reachable.
- Vulnerability chaining is real: Attackers often combine low-risk vulnerabilities to bypass protections and gain access.
- New exploits emerge frequently: A published PoC or technique can suddenly make a previously low risk vulnerability exploitable.
- Compliance does not differentiate: Standards like PCI DSS or ISO 27001 require action or justification for all known vulnerabilities.
As a proactive measure, SwyftComply enables instant patching of all open vulnerabilities, including those that are not currently exploitable. This ensures that you are not only protecting against immediate threats but also staying compliant and resilient against evolving risks, without waiting for full-code fixes or risking operational delays.
Let SwyftComply Do the Heavy Lifting
Manual prioritization and patching will not scale. SwyftComply, Indusface’s AI-led vulnerability remediation engine, automates the entire process from identifying truly exploitable vulnerabilities to instantly patching them with zero downtime.
Do not wait for an exploit to become your wake-up call. Start your free trial with SwyftComply and prioritize the vulnerabilities that matter before attackers take advantage of them.
