  The thesis advances the field of software security by providing knowledge and
automation support for software vulnerability assessment using data-driven
approaches. Software vulnerability assessment provides important and
multifaceted information to prevent and mitigate dangerous cyber-attacks in the
wild. The key contributions include a systematisation of knowledge, along with
a suite of novel data-driven techniques and practical recommendations for
researchers and practitioners in the area. The thesis results help improve the
understanding and inform the practice of assessing ever-increasing
vulnerabilities in real-world software systems. This in turn enables more
thorough and timely fixing prioritisation and planning of these critical
security issues.
