The Question Most Teams Get Wrong
You’ve scanned. You’ve patched. You’ve checked the compliance boxes.
But here’s the hard truth: you might still be wide open to compromise.
That’s because most security teams are still asking the wrong question: Are we vulnerable?
What they should be asking is: Are we exploitable?
There’s a world of difference between a theoretical weakness and one that can actually be used against you. In today’s threat landscape, understanding that difference isn’t optional—it’s foundational. And the data proves it.
In 2024 alone, Horizon3.ai’s NodeZero® platform conducted over 50,000 real-world pentests, identifying nearly 765,000 critical impacts. These weren’t alerts in a dashboard. They were verified, exploitable paths that lead to critical impacts that attackers could use to take down systems, exfiltrate data, or escalate to full domain compromise.
Vulnerability vs. Exploitability: A Subtle Difference with Major Consequences
Let’s clarify the core terms:
A vulnerability is a weakness—an open door, an oversight, a misconfiguration, a flaw in source code or even open-source code.
Exploitability is whether that door can be opened and used to do damage.
Just because a system is vulnerable doesn’t mean it’s exploitable. A patchable flaw on a segmented server with no reachable path might pose little actual risk. But a weak credential tied to a privileged user account that’s reused across the domain? That’s not just vulnerable—that’s a red carpet for attackers.
In other words, risk isn’t about how many CVEs you have; it’s about whether attackers can do something with them. And yet, many organizations still treat all vulnerabilities the same. That’s how teams end up spending weeks fixing low-priority issues while the real threats go untouched.
Real-World Exploitation: Where Theory Meets Impact
One of the most dangerous assumptions in cybersecurity is that a low-risk vulnerability can’t cause real harm. But attackers don’t see isolated issues. They look at the big picture, play the long game, and chain them together to reach an objective. Time is on their side, but it’s not always on yours.
Take this real-world NodeZero assessment:
- A single exposed cleartext password was found.
- That password led to domain user compromise.
- NodeZero then chained into PrintNightmare (CVE-2021-34527) to escalate privileges.
- Within hours, it gained domain admin access.
No alarms were triggered. No humans intervened.
And this wasn’t a simulation—this was run safely in a live production environment.
Examples of Exploitable Vulnerabilities Found in 2024:
- EternalBlue (CVE-2017-0144) – legacy systems still exposing RDP attack paths.
- PrintNightmare (CVE-2021-34527) – abused for lateral movement.
- BlueKeep (CVE-2019-0708) – unauthenticated RDP compromise.
- Misconfigured AWS IAM roles – leading to full cloud account takeovers.
- Publicly accessible SMB shares – leaking millions of sensitive credentials and keys.
Attackers are exploiting these weaknesses daily. And as NodeZero’s data shows, so are autonomous systems—safely, before the adversary does.
Zero-Day Exploit vs Known Vulnerability: Both Can Be Deadly
Security teams often scramble to patch high-profile zero-days while underestimating the threat of known vulnerabilities (N-days). But both carry risk, especially if you don’t know whether they’re exploitable in your environment.
A zero-day might not hit you today. But an unpatched KEV-listed flaw? That’s a loaded gun pointed at your network.
In 2024, NodeZero exploited 229 known CVEs nearly 100,000 times. Over 170 of these were from the CISA KEV catalog, meaning they were already being used in active attacks.
Organizations that validated exploitability early were able to respond. Those that waited? Many didn’t even know they were exposed until after the breach.
The Vulnerability Scanning Trap
Here’s where many teams get stuck.
Scanners flood dashboards with alerts—sometimes thousands of findings per scan. But according to Horizon3.ai’s Annual Report:
- Only 34% of security professionals find scanners effective.
- 36% say they’re overwhelmed by false positives.
- 41% question the accuracy of third-party pentest reports altogether.
What happens next? Teams burn cycles chasing noise, trying to make sense of abstract risk scores. Meanwhile, attackers walk in through the gaps those tools never prioritized. That’s the difference between vulnerability scanning vs. pentesting. The former tells you what might matter. The latter proves what does.
How to Know If You’re Exploitable
You can’t fix what you can’t verify. And the only way to answer the question “Am I exploitable?” is to test like the adversary does.
NodeZero doesn’t guess. It operates autonomously, in production, and without agents—just like a real attacker. It finds weak credentials. It chains misconfigurations. It maps the shortest path to crown-jewel assets, and it shows you the exact steps to fix it.
That’s not theory. That’s validation.
Why Security Misconfigurations Are Often the Real Problem
It’s not always about the CVE.
In fact, many of the most dangerous findings from NodeZero assessments in 2024 weren’t tied to published vulnerabilities—they were the result of IAM misconfigurations, excessive permissions, or stale credentials left behind.
- Microsoft Entra users were compromised over 5,000 times.
- AWS role misconfigurations accounted for 900+ exposures.
- Domain user privileges were escalated across 21,000+ cases.
These exploitable systems rarely show up in scanners. But they’re gold to attackers—and easily found by autonomous pentests.
Exploitability Is the Foundation of Risk Prioritization
When everything is a high priority, nothing is. That’s why modern teams don’t chase vulnerabilities—they reduce the exploitable attack surface.
By prioritizing based on likelihood of exploitation and business impact, organizations get clarity and speed. NodeZero maps out real attack paths and lets you fix once to collapse many risks. It also tracks Mean Time to Remediation (MTTR) and shows exactly which fixes had an impact.
And when you’ve patched? You retest. NodeZero’s 1-click verify makes validation fast, simple, and defensible.
Attack Yourself or Be Attacked
Compliance will always be the floor—not the ceiling. If you’re testing once a year to meet an audit, you’re not secure, you’re predictable.
The data shows it:
- Only 26% of orgs test more than once a year.
- But 82% of NodeZero customers now test monthly.
- 40% test weekly or more—because they’ve seen what attackers can do in a day.
In one case, NodeZero achieved domain admin in 60 seconds. The average time to critical impact was just 14 hours. That’s how fast attackers move. If you’re not testing with the same speed and persistence, you’re not keeping up.
Final Thought: Shift Your Mindset Before It’s Forced on You
The old playbook—scan, patch, report—isn’t cutting it. Attackers are chaining credentials, misconfigs, and overlooked CVEs at machine speed. It’s time we stop pretending that lists of vulnerabilities are the answer.
The real question is simple: Can this be used against us? If you can’t answer that, you’re vulnerable.
If you can, and you act on it—you’re resilient.