HP announced an enhancement to the HP TippingPoint Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) that calls for the publishing of vulnerability advisories no later than six months after flaws are detected and submitted to the programme.

After this period, ZDI will publicly release limited details of the vulnerabilities so that end-users can take precautionary measures. By establishing a deadline, ZDI is encouraging vendors to fix affected software quickly, reducing the risk of potential security attacks through identified weaknesses in these applications.

ZDI, managed by HP TippingPoint, is a research programme designed to improve security by identifying software flaws which lead to cyber attacks and security breaches. This policy update makes ZDI one of the first vendor-agnostic research organisations to impose a time limit on vulnerability disclosure cycles.

This policy change also makes it easier for HP to keep its TippingPoint clients’ systems up to date and protected from the latest security exploits. Once vulnerabilities are validated by ZDI, HP TippingPoint’s Digital Vaccine Labs (DVLabs) immediately develops a filter to provide protection from threats targeted at that weakness. This process enables HP TippingPoint Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) clients to harden their networks more quickly against security attacks.

HP TippingPoint products are part of the HP Secure Advantage portfolio. More information about HP TippingPoint solutions is available at www.hp.com/go/networking.