A Framework for Measuring the Vulnerability of Hosts

Published

June 30, 2008

Author(s)

Karen A. Scarfone, Timothy Grance

Abstract

This paper proposes a framework for measuring the vulnerability of individual hosts based on current and historical operational data for vulnerabilities and attacks. Previous approaches have not been scalable because they relied on complex manually constructed models, and most approaches have examined software flaws only, not other vulnerabilities such as software misconfiguration and user misbehavior. The framework uses a metrics-based approach that can be mostly automated, producing rapid and consistent measurements for quantitative risk assessment and for attack and vulnerability modeling. In this paper, we propose the framework and its components and describe the work planned to implement them.

Conference Dates

May 18-21, 2008

Conference Location

Gdansk,

Conference Title

1st International Conference on Information Technology

Pub Type

Conferences

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Keywords

attack measurement, host security, quantitative risk assessment, security metrics, threat modeling, vulnerability measurement, vulnerability scoring

Citation

Scarfone, K. and Grance, T. (2008), A Framework for Measuring the Vulnerability of Hosts, 1st International Conference on Information Technology, Gdansk, , [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=152092 (Accessed October 18, 2025)