Security teams treating CVE disclosure as the starting point for vulnerability management are fighting yesterday's battle, according to Steve Poole, developer advocate at HeroDevs.
The argument: By the time a CVE number gets assigned, attackers often already know about the flaw. The window between discovery and disclosure is when organizations are most exposed, yet many enterprises still structure their security processes around CVE publication dates.
What this means in practice: The CVE system, maintained by MITRE and used globally for vulnerability tracking, was designed for coordination and transparency. It was never meant to be the first line of defense. Organizations that wait for CVE disclosures to trigger security reviews are operating reactively.
The alternative approach centers on prevention: implementing secure coding standards during development, running static application security testing (SAST) in CI/CD pipelines, and managing dependencies before they become CVE headlines. OWASP's secure coding practices and NIST's implementation guidelines provide frameworks, but adoption remains inconsistent across enterprise teams.
Notably, this argument matters more as software supply chains grow more complex. A single application might pull in hundreds of dependencies, each with its own security posture. Waiting for CVE disclosure on embedded components means vulnerabilities can sit undetected for months.
The trade-offs: Shifting left on security requires tooling investment and developer training. SAST tools range from open-source options like Semgrep to enterprise platforms like Checkmarx. Implementation in existing CI/CD pipelines takes engineering time. Not every organization has the resources or expertise to run comprehensive static analysis before every deployment.
Three things to watch: First, whether large enterprises start measuring security by time-to-detection rather than time-to-patch. Second, how vulnerability disclosure programs evolve beyond the CVE-centric model. Third, whether secure coding training becomes standard for development teams, not just security specialists.
The pattern is clear: CVEs document problems. The question is whether your security strategy starts there, or whether you've already been running the checks that would have caught the issue earlier.