The Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS) is transforming how security teams tackle vulnerabilities. Instead of focusing solely on severity scores, EPSS shifts attention to real-world exploitability—helping teams fix what attackers are actually targeting instead of wasting time on theoretical risks. By leveraging EPSS scoring, organizations can significantly improve their vulnerability management strategy, making sure they patch high-risk CVEs before they are exploited.
Organizations face over 20,000 new CVEs every year. Keeping up is nearly impossible. Security teams already struggle with alert fatigue, often spending hours remediating vulnerabilities that may never be exploited. The result? Wasted resources, delayed response times, and an endless backlog of issues.
That’s where EPSS score management makes a difference. Unlike the fixed risk ratings in CVSS, EPSS scoring takes a forecasting-based approach. It helps teams focus on security gaps most likely to be attacked in the next 30 days, making fix efforts more targeted and efficient.
What’s New? EPSS v4
Developed by the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), EPSS v4—released on March 17, 2025—introduces major improvements:
- Better data modeling for more accurate exploit predictions.
- Real-time tracking of exploit activity to reflect current threats.
- Greater accuracy in identifying which vulnerabilities attackers will target next.
Cybersecurity expert Jay Jacobs, co-creator of EPSS, explains in his recent article, “Introducing EPSS Version 4”, that these updates enhance how security teams predict and prioritize threats. He emphasizes that EPSS now offers improved statistical modeling and more refined probability estimates, helping organizations focus on real-world risks rather than theoretical severity scores.
With these improvements, EPSS scoring gives clearer insights into exploitability, helping DevOps, security, and IT teams focus on real threats instead of possible risks.
What Is Exploit Prediction Scoring System
The Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS) transforms how security teams handle vulnerabilities. Unlike CVSS, which rates the potential severity of vulnerabilities, EPSS prioritizes real-world exploitability. It predicts which vulnerabilities attackers will likely exploit, helping teams focus on actual threats instead of theoretical risks.
This shift matters because not all high-severity vulnerabilities become attack targets. Many remain untouched, while moderate-risk vulnerabilities often face frequent exploitation. Security teams must make smart, risk-based decisions to use resources efficiently. EPSS enables them to do just that.
The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) created EPSS to close the gap between severity ratings and actual risk. It collects data from threat intelligence, past exploits, and real-time attacks. This approach helps teams focus on the most at-risk vulnerabilities, strengthen security, and respond faster to threats.
How EPSS Works
The Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS) improves how security teams manage vulnerabilities by moving the focus from severity ratings to real-world risks. Instead of assuming that every high-severity vulnerability poses the same level of danger, EPSS determines which ones criminals will most likely exploit within the next 30 days.
This shift in approach matters because cybercriminals do not attack every high-severity vulnerability. Some go ignored for years, while others become frequent attack targets despite having lower severity scores. For this reason, EPSS helps teams rank vulnerabilities more effectively and fix the most urgent threats first instead of wasting time on theoretical risks.
How Does EPSS Determine a Score?
EPSS analyzes threat intelligence, historical exploit activity, and real-world attack patterns to calculate a probability score between 0 and 1 (0-100%). This score represents the likelihood that attackers will exploit a vulnerability within the next 30 days.
EPSS v4, released on March 17, 2025, improves on previous versions by introducing more precise modeling, real-time exploit tracking, and increased predictive accuracy.
The Five-Step Process of EPSS Scoring
EPSS calculates exploitability risk using a structured five-step process. Each step builds on the previous one, making sure that security teams receive real-time, data-driven insights into cyber threats. As a result, organizations can prioritize vulnerabilities more effectively and respond to threats with greater accuracy.
- Data Collection: To begin with, EPSS gathers vulnerability data from the CVE database and other trusted sources. This step lays the foundation for accurate scoring by pulling in detailed vulnerability attributes.
- Exploitation Evidence Gathering: At the same time, EPSS monitors daily records of exploit activity from both public and private threat intelligence feeds. By analyzing this data, security teams can identify which vulnerabilities criminals actively target.
- Model Training: Afterward, EPSS examines historical trends to identify patterns between vulnerabilities and exploitation activity. By continuously refining its machine learning models, EPSS enhances its predictive accuracy over time.
- Performance Evaluation: In order to maintain reliability, EPSS regularly tests and fine-tunes its predictions. By incorporating statistical validation, the system ensures its scores remain accurate and relevant.
- Daily Updates: Finally, EPSS refreshes vulnerability scores every day based on the latest exploit activity and threat intelligence. With this in mind, security teams can always access up-to-date risk assessments and prioritize threats accordingly.
Why Exploitability Matters in Cybersecurity
Exploitability—the likelihood that an attacker will exploit a vulnerability—drives EPSS score vulnerability management.
This focus is what sets EPSS apart from traditional scoring models, which tend to over-prioritize vulnerabilities based solely on severity.
For example, a vulnerability might have severe theoretical consequences but remain unexploited in practice due to:
- Limited attacker interest—Not all vulnerabilities are worth the effort.
- Environmental barriers—Some require specific conditions to be exploited.
- Lack of public exploit code—If an exploit isn’t available, the risk is lower.
By using exploitability, EPSS enables organizations to focus on vulnerabilities that present the most immediate and realistic risks, making sure a more effective security posture.
Real-World Example of EPSS in Action
A company analyzes two vulnerabilities in its system and must decide which one to fix first:
- CVE-2023-12345: A critical vulnerability in a widely used server software, with a CVSS score of 9.5, indicating severe potential impact. However, its EPSS score is 0.05, meaning the likelihood of exploitation is low due to lack of public exploit code or attacker interest.
- CVE-2023-67890: A moderate vulnerability in a popular library, with a CVSS score of 6.0. Despite the lower severity, its EPSS score is 0.78, highlighting a high likelihood of exploitation.
By using EPSS, the company avoids wasting time on CVE-2023-12345 just because it has a high CVSS score. Instead, they focus their resources on CVE-2023-67890 because attackers are actually exploiting it.
This example shows why EPSS-based vulnerability management helps teams make smarter security decisions. Instead of fixing hypothetical risks, they focus on actual threats first, strengthening defenses while saving time and effort.
How the EPSS Score Enhances Vulnerability Management
Security teams handle thousands of security flaws, making it nearly impossible to fix everything. Traditional methods rank issues by severity, but this often leads to alert fatigue, wasted effort, and slow responses to real threats. EPSS focuses on exploitability, helping teams filter out low-risk issues and concentrate on those most likely to be targeted.
Cuts Through Alert Fatigue: Studies show that 48% of organizations receive over 10,000 security alerts daily, and up to 52% are false positives (Gartner Study). EPSS helps teams focus on real threats, reducing the noise from alerts that don’t matter.
Saves Time and Resources: Security teams waste time patching vulnerabilities that attackers will never exploit. EPSS prioritizes the ones most at risk, helping teams work efficiently and strengthen their security posture.
Speeds Up Response Times: Without real-world exploitability data, teams might delay fixes for serious vulnerabilities or waste effort on low-risk ones. EPSS provides real-time insights, helping teams make decisions faster and close security gaps before attackers strike.
- Helps Prevent Future Attacks: Many organizations struggle to react to threats, rushing to apply fixes only after attackers take advantage of weaknesses. EPSS helps teams stay ahead by identifying security gaps that could be the next targets.
- Makes Prioritization Smarter: EPSS works best when combined with reachability analysis (checking if a security flaw is actually used in an application) and business impact assessments (checking how important an asset is). With this extra context, teams fix the issues that pose real risks and skip unnecessary work.
EPSS helps security teams work smarter, not harder. Instead of chasing every vulnerability, they focus on the ones that pose real risks, save resources, and stay ahead of attackers.
EPSS vs CVSS: Want to Learn More?
While EPSS focuses on exploitability, and CVSS provides severity ratings—both play crucial roles in vulnerability management.
Explore our in-depth blog post where we break down the key differences between EPSS vs CVSS, how they complement each other, and best practices for smarter prioritization.
Xygeni’s Approach to EPSS Exploit Prediction Scoring System
Reachability Analysis for Effective EPSS Score Vulnerability Management
Xygeni’s standout capability, reachability analysis, helps teams evaluate whether a vulnerability is actively invoked during runtime. By combining EPSS scores with reachability data, Xygeni empowers teams to:
- Identify vulnerabilities that are exploitable and accessible within their environment.
- Ignore no necessary threats, focusing only on vulnerabilities that pose immediate risks rather than theoretical ones.
For example, consider a security flaw with a high EPSS score but no runtime reachability. Instead of focusing on this issue, the team can redirect their efforts to more urgent threats. This approach ensures that time and resources go toward the most important risks, making operations more effective.
Using Dynamic Funnels with EPSS Scores to Prioritize Risks
Xygeni enhances vulnerability management with dynamic prioritization funnels, helping organizations adjust how they prioritize risks based on specific business needs. This feature integrates EPSS scores with additional contextual data, such as:
- Exploitability metrics, which assess whether a vulnerability is actively targeted in the wild.
- Business impact, evaluating how exploitation could affect critical systems.
- Severity levels, incorporating traditional CVSS scores for a more comprehensive view of risks.
With Xygeni’s flexible funnel system, security teams can align their prioritization strategies with operational goals. For instance, they can focus on high-risk vulnerabilities that affect critical systems while addressing low-impact issues as resources allow. This targeted approach ensures that teams stay focused and efficient.
Leveraging Automation for EPSS Score Vulnerability Management
Xygeni uses automation to enhance its integration of EPSS scores, helping teams organize their workflows and respond faster to threats. Some key features include:
- Real-Time Detection and Alerts: By adding EPSS insights into CI/CD pipelines, Xygeni provides immediate alerts about risky deployments, helping teams block them before they cause harm.
- Early Warning Systems: These systems detect vulnerabilities that attackers are likely to exploit soon. This helps teams handle threats early and prevent attacks before they happen.
This level of automation reduces manual work, helping security teams save time and effort while boosting their overall response to threats.
Streamlined Collaboration Across Teams
Xygeni makes it easier for security and development teams to work together. It shows EPSS scores in a clear and easy-to-understand way, helping both teams focus on the most important vulnerabilities. Developers get tasks prioritized by real-world exploitability, so they can fix the most urgent threats. This shared focus keeps everyone on the same page and working efficiently.
The Xygeni Advantage
Xygeni integrates EPSS scores into its vulnerability management tools, helping organizations prioritize exploitability over theoretical severity. The Exploit Prediction Scoring System (EPSS) provides a data-driven way to focus on vulnerabilities most likely to be exploited, making sure security teams fix real-world threats first.
- Reduce alert fatigue by focusing only on vulnerabilities with a high EPSS score.
- Fix critical risks faster by prioritizing based on exploitability instead of just severity.
- Use resources wisely by addressing the most immediate threats first.
Take your vulnerability management to the next level. Contact Xygeni today to learn how EPSS scores can help you stay ahead of attackers and fix the right vulnerabilities faster.
