I look at www.cert.org just about every day to see what new vulnerabilites are up and about. They seem to update their site about new vulnerabilites fairly quickly (at about the same speed as MS does, maybe a bit sooner) and verify their statements not only via other sources but by claiming that exploit code is publicly available.

Out of curiosity and because I am studying to become a network security professional, I was curious as to how sites such cert discover these exploits and exploit code that is publicly available. Do they have dedicated people focusing on certain aspects of security in the OS constantly hammering away until they find a problem? I'm sure paroozing around for hacker sites is blah and risky, opening yourself up to exploit.

Any thoughts? Maybe I just lack common sense on this topic, but its fascinating I think.

Thanks
toxic.influx