The news is full of cybersecurity breaches, especially with the proliferation of AI, but there are some aspects of these news cycles that don't quite make sense.

The Disclosure Process of a Cybersecurity Vulnerability

Most of the time, you never hear about the cybersecurity vulnerabilities, they're patched during code reviews and internal issues before the code is ever released. But to err is to be human and not every single security vulnerability is caught before the code reaches the world, but even then you may not hear about it. Oftentimes these security vulnerabilities are just taken care of in normal software updates and there's nothing more than a sentence or maybe a bullet point in the release notes that nobody looks at.

"Okay that's cool and all, but you still haven't answered the question"

A zero day vulnerability is usually what hits the news because of how it's discovered. Most of the time, people are able to figure out the security vulnerabilities and handle them before they're ever used. A zero day vulnerability is discovered because it was used by some bad actor. It was exploited on the zeroth day that the developers knew about the vulnerability. This is usually why you hear about them in the news, but they are a minority of security issues.

That may or may not make you more comfortable, but it's the truth that they're a small subset of all of the code issues that have ever exist. They're getting a lot of press attention these days mostly due to the fact that they're being found by AI now, which is to be expected.

The world of cybersecurity is honestly rather complex and it's a constant battle between people trying to keep the software safe and people trying to take advantage of the vulnerabilities. The best course of action as an everyday user who doesn't build or test software is to always make sure your software is up to date. New security fixes are added to basically every new version of software, so staying up to date with your software updates is like staying up to date with your vaccines.