Overview

The term 'zero-day' refers to the fact that the vendor has had zero days to fix the vulnerability. These exploits are highly prized by attackers because they are difficult to defend against.

Lifecycle

  1. Discovery: An attacker or researcher finds a vulnerability.
  2. Exploitation: The attacker creates and uses an exploit to target systems.
  3. Detection: The vulnerability or attack is discovered by the vendor or security community.
  4. Patching: The vendor releases a security update to fix the flaw.

Mitigation

  • Defense in Depth: Using multiple layers of security.
  • Behavioral Analysis: Detecting unusual activity that may indicate an exploit.
  • Sandboxing: Running suspicious code in an isolated environment.

Related Terms