Behind every Risk Operations Center is one driving force — intelligence. In this ROCon 2025 keynote, Saeed Abbasi, Senior Manager of Product Management for Security Research at Qualys, reveals how the Threat Research Unit (TRU) fuels the heart of cyber defense by turning raw vulnerability data into quantifiable business risk. Abbasi takes viewers inside the attacker’s playbook to expose how modern ransomware groups operate more like enterprises than opportunistic hackers — reusing proven exploits, monetizing compliance filings, and weaponizing trusted software. He explains how TRU identifies, prioritizes, and mitigates vulnerabilities before adversaries can exploit them — with a median response time of just 16 hours and coverage of 99.2% of weaponized CVEs. Key insights include: •How TRU’s 120+ white-hat researchers detect and neutralize critical vulnerabilities worldwide •Why focusing on weaponized threats beats chasing CVE counts •The role of True Confirm in proving exploitability safely and accurately •How ransomware groups now industrialize attacks, repeating exploits for ROI •Why organizations must evolve toward a Risk Operations Center (ROC) mindset to outpace adversaries From zero-day discoveries to Pwnie Award–winning breakthroughs, this session shows how Qualys TRU defines the standard for proactive, intelligence-driven risk management. Recorded live at ROCon 2025 – The Risk Operations Conference, presented by Qualys.

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