⏱ 5 min read
Key Takeaways
- 32% of the most active exploits are old vulnerabilities, more than ten years old — patches exist, they’re just not being applied.
- Attackers start with the low-hanging fruit: automated scans for known, unpatched flaws before deploying anything sophisticated.
- Patch management isn’t a technical problem — it’s a prioritization problem.
- A no-cost TC21 Risk Assessment quickly surfaces where your security posture has gaps — before attackers find them for you.
- Cyber insurance carriers reward organizations with disciplined, layered defenses: higher coverage, lower deductibles.
Attackers aren’t always sophisticated. Sometimes they’re just patient — and they’re betting your organization never got around to patching.
New research from Cisco Talos’ 2025 Year in Review, covered by Help Net Security this week, delivers a finding that should stop every senior leader cold: nearly one-third of the most actively exploited enterprise vulnerabilities are more than ten years old. Not zero-days. Not advanced persistent threats. Known flaws — documented, published, and patchable — that organizations have been sitting on for years while attackers have been quietly exploiting them.
Patch management isn’t failing organizations because it’s hard. It’s failing because it keeps getting deprioritized.
Old Vulnerabilities Don’t Expire — Attackers Know It
Yes, sophisticated threat actors develop custom exploits. But they don’t start there. Why would they? Before any custom tooling gets deployed, attackers run automated scans against publicly documented vulnerabilities — looking for the easiest door left unlocked. Legacy systems, end-of-life software, deferred update cycles. These aren’t edge cases. They are the primary attack surface, and they are being targeted first, systematically, at scale.
Most breaches don’t require a zero-day. They require unpatched software and an organization that decided it wasn’t urgent enough.
This is the #CYBERinsanity I talk about constantly at TechOnPurpose — the normalized bad habits that make organizations easy targets. This week’s research confirms it isn’t theoretical. It’s happening now, across every sector, to organizations that assumed someone else was the target.
Where TOPCYBER21™ Addresses This Directly
At TechOnPurpose, every client engagement starts with a no-cost TC21 Risk Assessment — a rapid evaluation that simply and quickly quantifies your actual exposure before we do anything else.
This isn’t a vulnerability scanner. It’s a framework adoption assessment — it tells you clearly and concisely where gaps exist in your security posture, based on where your defenses actually stand today. You can’t build a credible defense without knowing where your foundation is weak. That’s what a no-cost TC21 Risk Assessment surfaces, fast.
From there, TC21-05 (Security Updates & Patch Management) provides a disciplined, repeatable process — not reacting to headlines, but systematically reducing exposure through a consistent patch cadence, accurate asset inventory, and risk-based prioritization.
And for organizations that want to go further — to actually see what compromised data could cost them — our TOPCYBER21™ Quantified Data Risk Valuation (QDRV) is an optional add-on that locates sensitive data, calculates potential financial penalties and liabilities, and enables one-click encryption to stop data leakage in the event of an attack. It’s not part of our standard bundles — it’s a purpose-built tool for organizations that want to put a real dollar figure on the risk sitting in their environment right now. A 14-day free trial is available.
Together, the TC21-00 Risk Assessment, TC21-05, and QDRV form a credible, measurable response to exactly what this research confirms: the most exploited vulnerabilities aren’t exotic. They’re predictable, they’re preventable, and the financial exposure from ignoring them is quantifiable.
What to Do Right Now
Start with a TC21 Risk Assessment. It will quickly surface where your security framework has gaps — including whether patch management is actually being executed or just scheduled. From there, build your defense-in-depth systematically across the TC21 framework. If you want to understand the financial risk of your current data exposure while that work is underway, QDRV gives you that picture fast.
The organizations that assess early, patch consistently, and verify both are measurably harder to breach. That’s not an opinion — it’s what the data shows, year after year. It’s also why most cyber insurance carriers provide higher coverage with lower deductibles when these critical systems are in place. They know the math: an organization running disciplined, layered defenses is a dramatically lower risk to insure.
32%
of the most actively exploited enterprise vulnerabilities in 2025 were more than ten years old — patches existed, they just weren’t applied.
Source: Cisco Talos 2025 Year in Review, via Help Net Security
The Bottom Line
The threat landscape remains complex, and becomes more so every day. But the most reliable way attackers are getting in right now isn’t sophisticated — it’s opportunity. Old software. Known flaws. Deferred patches. Your job is to stop giving them that opening.
Protect first. Document after. Adapt accordingly. All roads lead to TC21 from TechOnPurpose.
Ready to STOP the #CYBERinsanity?
Find out where your organization actually stands — before an attacker does it for you.
About the Author
Matt Tankersley, CISSP is a US Navy combat veteran, Founder & CEO of TechOnPurpose, and creator of the TOPCYBER21™ Framework. With 35+ years in IT and cybersecurity, he helps organizations STOP the #CYBERinsanity and build real, layered protection that works.
About TechOnPurpose
At TechOnPurpose, we help organizations move from under-resourced and “stuck in the cybersecurity headlights” to fully supported and protected in hours or days—not weeks. Through comprehensive IT support and our TOPCYBER21™ framework, we assess cyber risk in 15 minutes and build defense-in-depth protection fast. As a veteran-owned MSSP and globally recognized Top 250 provider, we don’t just support and secure—we elevate the role of trusted technology partner.
