Marking 15 years of software security analysis, the trends from this year’s report are striking. The widening gap between leading and lagging security programs underscores the urgency of proactive remediation, AI-driven security fixes, and supply chain risk mitigation.

Over the past five years, critical software flaws have increased by 181%, with supply chain vulnerabilities playing a significant role in this rise. Despite this growing risk, there are signs of progress, as OWASP Top 10 pass rates have improved by 63%, indicating stronger security policies among top-tier organizations. However, the challenge of security debt persists, with half of all security flaws remaining unresolved for more than eight months, making it harder for organizations to stay ahead of threats. A major contributing factor is third-party code, which accounts for 70% of all critical security debt, underscoring the difficulty of managing open-source dependencies effectively.

“Security teams must take a more strategic, context-driven approach to managing the most urgent and exploitable risks. Traditional patching alone isn’t enough.” ~Chris Wysopal, Chief Security Evangelist

The Numbers Don’t Lie

Security debt continues to be a major challenge for organizations, impacting their ability to maintain a strong security posture. The 2025 State of Software Security Report reveals that nearly 74% of organizations have accumulated some level of security debt, meaning they have unresolved vulnerabilities that persist beyond a year. Of even greater concern, half of these organizations are dealing with critical security debt, where the flaws are both high in severity and high in exploitability. These unresolved issues create significant risks, leaving organizations vulnerable to breaches, compliance failures, and operational disruptions.

The longer these security flaws remain unaddressed, the harder they become to remediate. Older vulnerabilities often require more effort and resources to fix due to outdated dependencies, lack of documentation, or changes in development teams. As applications evolve, unpatched flaws can spread across multiple systems, increasing the cost and complexity of remediation. This debt also compounds over time, as new vulnerabilities emerge faster than older ones are fixed, making it increasingly difficult for security teams to keep up.

This visualization shows that while some organizations manage to stay debt-free, the majority face growing backlogs of unresolved vulnerabilities, increasing long-term risk exposure.

As Sohail Iqbal, Chief Information Security Officer, points out “Understanding your software risk posture is now a requirement. Fixing everything isn’t feasible, but fixing the right things strategically is the path to security maturity.”

Speed Matters More Than Ever

One of the most concerning trends is the increasing time it takes to fix security flaws. The report shows that the average number of days to fix flaws has increased by 47% over the past five years. To break this cycle, organizations need to adopt a strategic approach to security debt management, prioritizing the most exploitable flaws, integrating automated scanning tools, and enforcing stronger policies for open-source and third-party dependencies.

Without these measures, security debt will continue to grow, leaving organizations at heightened risk of cyberattacks and compliance violations.

This chart highlights the stark contrast between leading organizations (fixing half of their flaws in five weeks) and lagging ones (taking over a year to address vulnerabilities).

The AI Factor: How Automation is Reshaping Software Security

One of the most significant shifts in this year’s State of Software Security Report is the growing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) in software development and security. AI-powered tools are transforming how code is written, tested, and secured, offering both advantages and challenges for security teams. While many organizations hesitate to openly acknowledge their reliance on AI-generated code, the data reveals unmistakable signs of its presence. This shift reflects a broader industry trend where AI-driven development is accelerating innovation but also introducing new risks that must be carefully managed.

As the report humorously notes, “I won’t say I’m using AI to generate code… but there will be signs.” These “signs” manifest in various ways, from the increasing efficiency of software development cycles to new patterns of security vulnerabilities emerging in AI-assisted code. On the positive side, AI enables faster and more scalable coding practices, allowing developers to generate and deploy software at unprecedented speeds. It also assists in automated security testing, vulnerability detection, and remediation, helping organizations identify flaws earlier in the development process.

However, the integration of AI into coding workflows also raises critical security concerns. AI-generated code can inherit security flaws if the training data includes vulnerable patterns or if developers rely too heavily on AI-generated suggestions without proper validation. Furthermore, organizations that fail to implement secure-by-design principles risk deploying software that contains hidden vulnerabilities, increasing the attack surface for cyber threats.

This is why you need a third-party analysis team like Cyentia. AI-generated insights can be fast, but they’re not always reliable—hallucinated data and misleading correlations can lead to poor security decisions. At Cyentia, we analyze your security data with expert oversight, producing reports you can trust to guide your strategy. Our research ensures that your risk assessments are based on real trends, not AI guesswork, helping you make informed, data-driven decisions. AI can process information, but only expert analysis can turn it into actionable intelligence. Learn more at Cyentia.com.

This chart underscores the longer remediation timelines for open-source vulnerabilities, reinforcing the need for proactive AI-driven security strategies.

Where Do You Stand? Benchmarking Your Security Maturity

The report outlines five key metrics that help organizations assess their security maturity. Flaw prevalence measures how many of an organization’s applications contain security flaws, providing a baseline for overall risk. Fix capacity evaluates how many vulnerabilities teams can realistically remediate each month, helping to gauge the efficiency of security operations. Fix speed tracks how quickly organizations address identified flaws, with faster remediation reducing exposure to potential breaches. Security debt highlights the number of flaws that persist for over a year, indicating whether unresolved vulnerabilities are accumulating over time. Lastly, open-source debt assesses how much of an organization’s security risk stems from third-party code, which is often harder to control and remediate.

Leading organizations stay ahead by prioritizing high-risk flaws, implementing automated remediation, and leveraging AI-assisted security workflows to manage vulnerabilities efficiently. Those who measure and improve on these five metrics gain a strategic advantage in reducing risk and strengthening their overall security posture.

Final Thoughts

The 2025 State of Software Security Report makes one thing clear: mature security programs prioritize risk-based decision-making. Organizations that fail to strategically address security debt will continue to struggle as attack surfaces expand, compliance pressures mount, and vulnerabilities accumulate. With security flaws taking longer to fix and critical debt growing—especially in third-party code—companies that don’t take a data-driven approach will find themselves at a serious disadvantage.

Managing security risks effectively requires more than just patching vulnerabilities; it demands a clear, evidence-based strategy that aligns with real-world threats and operational priorities. That’s where Cyentia comes in. AI can surface information, but expert analysis is what turns data into actionable security insights. Our research-driven reports help organizations benchmark their security performance, identify key risk areas, and develop strategies based on real trends—not AI guesswork or incomplete data.

Security is no longer just about reacting to threats; it’s about staying ahead of them with proactive, informed decision-making. With Cyentia’s expert-backed analysis, organizations can confidently prioritize high-impact vulnerabilities, allocate resources efficiently, and build a security posture that evolves with the landscape.

Download the full report now to gain a deeper understanding of these critical findings and see where your organization stands in the security maturity model. For data-driven insights that guide your strategy, visit Cyentia.com.