Evidence Decay Window

Evidence Decay Window is the interval during which a security claim about a client system stays true. A clean scan, a passing audit, or a closed vulnerability ticket describes a moment, and that moment expires at the speed of new exploit discovery. OpenAI's GPT-6 Cyber surfaced 81 previously unknown Firefox flaws and 948 Linux exploits in a single release cycle, which compresses the shelf life of any scan run before it. Agencies that treat a one-time penetration test as a retainer deliverable are selling a snapshot as if it were a subscription. The framework asks three questions per client: when was evidence last collected, what discovery rate applies to that stack, and what is the contractual refresh interval. Tools like Sentrint, which grades repositories and regenerates fix prompts per finding, or Aikido's continuous scanning model, fit the refresh cadence better than annual audits. Price the refresh, not the report.