Just take a look at the U.S. National Vulnerability Database powered by CVE and you can search for CVEs that you might have in your own systems. If you just purchased a Cisco router or a Linksys wireless router or Solaris version 9 running Netscape Enterprise, or anything else that plugs into a network, type in the name of the system in the NVD and see how many CVEs (vulnerabilities) you find.

Want to see the top 20 exploited vulnerabilities? Visit SANS and you'll see 10 vulnerabilities in Windows and 10 in Unix/Linux systems. If you have one of these holes, close it as quick as you can or you can expect to be taken advantage of when you least expect it.

Hackers, viruses and worms cause billions in damages by using CVEs against us, and the damages are growing annually. How many CVEs do you have in your network? Is your computer network taking you out of compliance? Knowing if you have any CVEs is the only way to find out and is considered due diligence. Removing critical CVEs is considered due care. Frequent and consistently scheduled security audits for CVEs and their removal is the only prudent thing to do as a proactive information security manager.

Now is the time to find and fix your CVEs so you can be more productive and suffer less downtime and successful hacker attacks. If you remove all of your CVEs you'll be as close to 100 percent secure as possible. This will make the exploiters less successful in breaking into or taking control of your computers, and they'll have to start looking elsewhere. Remember, if you harden your network assets before an attack, you'll most likely reduce your risk of downtime and data theft dramatically. Go here today and start working on removing your CVEs before the next attack.

Gary Miliefsky is founder and CTO of NetClarity, Inc. He servers as an advisor to MITRE Corp. and is a member of the National Information Security Group's Board of Directors. He received his undergraduate degree from UMASS Lowell in Computer Science and subsequently earned certification as a CISSP. Miliefsky holds more than a dozen published and pending patents on information security.