Getting Ahead of Exploitation with Initial Access Intelligence

In cybersecurity, timing is everything. Whether you're responding to threats, building detections, or preparing for red team exercises, knowing that a vulnerability is exploitable and having access to functional code can mean the difference between proactive defense and damage control.

VulnCheck’s Initial Access Intelligence (IAI) delivers that edge. Built by a team of former government exploit developers and offensive security experts (including contributors to Metasploit), IAI delivers production-ready, validated exploits and detections for vulnerabilities most likely to be exploited for initial access and most likely to be added to CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.

Why Public PoC Isn’t Enough

Public proof-of-concept (PoC) code is often incomplete, unstable, straight-up fake, or requires significant modification before it's usable in real-world conditions. Even when a PoC is available, it can take days or weeks for a functional, weaponized version to emerge. Worse, some public PoCs contain obfuscated payloads or malicious code that can introduce risk during testing.

Security teams often spend valuable time sorting through unreliable or dangerous public exploits. That’s time that could be spent defending their environment.

Initial Access Intelligence (IAI) eliminates that uncertainty by providing:

• Working exploit code with documented preconditions and execution steps
• PCAPs, signatures, and detection rules for immediate SOC and SIEM integration
• Reconnaissance queries (Shodan, Censys, FOFA) to map exposure
• Validated intelligence built and tested in-house

No more reverse engineering tweets, cleaning up broken GitHub scripts, or risking a sandbox detonation just to verify a PoC. With IAI, you get safe, verified, ready-to-use tools from day one.

VulnCheck Exploit Availability vs. CISA KEV

When examining VulnCheck’s Initial Access data and comparing the dates of availability with CISA KEV, we found that 32.1% of the time, VulnCheck’s exploit proof-of-concepts (POCs) and detection artifacts were available before the vulnerability was added to CISA KEV. 50% of the time, VulnCheck's exploit POCs were available within nine days of the vulnerability’s addition to CISA KEV.

Furthermore, there are 150 CVEs we’ve generated exploits and detection artifacts for that have not yet been included in CISA KEV but have confirmed evidence of exploitation. This underscores the value of VulnCheck’s early availability of exploits and detection artifacts.

VulnCheck Vendor Coverage

When we take a look at our focus, the VulnCheck Initial Access team is focused on building exploits and detection artifacts for initial access. This chart highlights many of the common vendors and technologies that we’ve released initial access artifacts including network edge devices, open source software, server products, content management systems, file sharing platforms, ICS/OT devices and more.

Our Curation Picks the Right Targets

87.2% of IAI CVEs eventually had public exploits developed - proof that VulnCheck's prioritization focuses on what truly matters.

The Timing Advantage

IAI isn't just early, it’s strategic. Here’s how the 383 CVEs in our dataset break down:

• 8.4%: No public PoC available at the time of IAI delivery
• 42.0%: IAI delivered after a public PoC, but before any known public weaponized tooling (e.g., Metasploit)
• 15.1%: IAI delivered before or at the same time as the public PoC
• 34.5%: IAI delivered after public sources, but included validated exploits, detections, and artifacts

Real-World Success Stories

• CVE-2025-23006: A Sonicwall SMA1000 vulnerability confirmed exploited by CISA KEV with VulnCheck as the only Exploit source.
• CVE-2024-40891 and CVE-2024-40890: Zyxel Gateway DSL Modem vulnerabilities confirmed as exploited by CISA 214 Days after VulnCheck exploit and detection artifact availability.
• CVE-2023-27855: A Rockwell Automation ThinManager ThinServer vulnerability, delivered 765 days before public weaponization
• CVE-2024-4885: A Progress WhatsUp Gold vulnerability added to CISA KEV 234 Days after VulnCheck exploit and detection artifact availability.

Built for Action

IAI doesn’t just get you ahead of exploitation in the wild, it’s more practical:

• Blue Teams: Customize and test detections, harden systems, and simulate exploitation preemptively
• Red Teams: Launch real-world attacks without waiting for public code
• Vulnerability Management: Prioritize patching based on active exploitability
• Security Leadership: Reduce exposure before CVEs become KEV-listed or broadly exploited

Strategic Takeaways

While your team is waiting for public PoCs, attackers may already be exploiting While competitors are analyzing disclosures, your defenses are already in place While others react to KEV updates, you’ve already patched or blocked exposure Conclusion VulnCheck’s Initial Access dataset doesn’t just provide early access, it provides months of early access to production-ready exploits for vulnerabilities that frequently become exploited in the wild.

In cybersecurity, being reactive is expensive. IAI gives you a sustainable head start.

Want to see how VulnCheck's Initial Access dataset can give your team a competitive edge? Contact us to learn more.

About VulnCheck

VulnCheck is helping organizations not just to solve the vulnerability prioritization challenge - we’re working to help equip any product manager, CSIRT/PSIRT or SecOps team and Threat Hunting team to get faster and more accurate with infinite efficiency using VulnCheck solutions.

We knew that we needed better data, faster across the board, in our industry. So that’s what we deliver to the market. We’re going to continue to deliver key insights on vulnerability management, exploitation and major trends we can extrapolate from our dataset to continuously support practitioners.

Are you interested in learning more? If so, VulnCheck's Exploit & Vulnerability Intelligence has broad threat actor coverage. Register and demo our data today.