1. A vulnerability detection and alerting system for detecting compromise of one or more internet protocol (IP) devices on an IP network, the system comprising: a detector configured to detect one or more primitive vulnerability events in the IP devices; and an attribute engine configured to generate attribute data representing information about an importance of the IP devices, wherein the attribute data has an associated weighting function, and the primitive vulnerability events are weighted according to the attribute data corresponding to one of the IP devices that generated the primitive vulnerability events, wherein the attribute data comprises quality of data produced by the IP devices, age of the IP devices, time since last maintenance of the IP devices, integrity of the IP devices, and reliability of the IP devices.