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Vulnerabilities & Threats·Updated 2026-10-21

What is CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog?

Short answer

The KEV catalog is CISA’s list of vulnerabilities with reliable evidence of active exploitation. US federal civilian agencies must fix them by set deadlines, and CISA recommends every organization use the catalog to prioritize patching.

The details

For a small team with limited time, patching anything in KEV that you run, especially on internet-facing systems, is one of the most effective uses of effort.

Useful next reads and tools

Terms explained

Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV)
CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog lists vulnerabilities with reliable evidence that attackers are exploiting them.
Patch management
Patch management is the process of finding, prioritizing, testing and installing software updates that fix security flaws.

Sources

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