My armchair theory is that it’s partly a marketing problem. Covid was treated with more fear because it was “the coronavirus” at first. Everyone has had “the flu” before, but nobody had had the spooky “coronavirus” at that point (even if they had—they just hadn’t heard of it). “It’s just the flu bro” is a difficult mindset to overcome.
The same marketing problem existed with CVEs before Heartbleed. CVE-2014-0160 just doesn’t sound as frightening.
The same marketing problem existed with CVEs before Heartbleed. CVE-2014-0160 just doesn’t sound as frightening.