The CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) program catalogs software and firmware vulnerabilities in a free “dictionary” for organizations to use. It also provides a standard way for security administrators to get technical information about the same vulnerability from multiple sources.
Organizations that are authorized to assign CVE identifiers are known as CNAs. A primary CNA like MITRE manages the identifiers, while root CNAs handle first-time product vulnerability announcements related to their products.
Compliance
A company’s compliance with governmental and industry regulations helps to reduce its risk of being targeted by cyber attackers. This can help protect the business’s reputation, attract new clients, and improve financial performance. In addition, a commitment to compliance can aid in securing investments from potential investors, as they will be more interested in working with businesses that conduct their operations ethically and fairly.
The CVE system, with the benefits of CVE-compatible products and services, allows organizations to gain insight into vulnerabilities and exposures within their IT infrastructure by capturing information shared by a vast community of trusted entities, including vendors, researchers, developers, and end-users. This community of individuals is qualified to identify and describe coding flaws or security misconfigurations that bad actors could exploit. CVE records provide a consistent description and identification of these underlying issues, making it easier for organizations to understand what is at risk.
Each vulnerability identifier within the CVE system is assigned by a CVE Numbering Authority (CNA) and includes an alphanumeric ID, a brief description of the underlying issue, and at least one public reference. The CNAs, including MITRE, work together to ensure consistency in mapping vulnerabilities across disparate data sources. The goal is to streamline how information about these coding flaws and security misconfigurations is shared and used by vendors, customers, researchers, and security professionals.
Security Alerts & Advisories
Security alerts and advisories inform organizational constituents of changes to security-related information systems at three levels of granularity: the governance level, the mission/business process/enterprise architecture level, and the information system level. The information in these notifications dictates operational priorities and provides input for configuring devices and deploying defender tools to protect against the latest threats.
Often, information included in these sources is classified as “operational” or “intelligence,” which influences how the information is used. For instance, operational security teams and other defenders may act upon some information immediately, while intelligence analysts leverage additional data for research.
For example, recent applications could be exploited remotely to gain unauthenticated access to sensitive information. This vulnerability prompted the organization to issue a security alert classified as “operational” and immediately impacted day-to-day operations.
To mitigate vulnerabilities, apply software patches as soon as possible for web applications that hold sensitive information and enable network defenders to monitor and detect any tampering attempts actively. Configure these applications to log and generate alerts when tamper attempts are detected. Aggregate these logs into a centralized solution, such as a security information and event management (SIEM) tool to provide real-time alerting and active monitoring.
Interoperability
The CVE system provides a common language and standard for identifying vulnerabilities to improve security. This approach to vulnerability management allows security tools, services, and databases to communicate with one another. It also helps organizations understand and prioritize vulnerabilities. This is critical for reducing risk, improving interoperability, and providing a basis for evaluating tools and services.
A vulnerability is a mistake in software code that attackers can exploit to gain access to systems or networks, steal sensitive data, or sell it on the dark web. These vulnerabilities are the root cause of many significant data breaches. The CVE system defines a set of standards that provide a common identifier for these mistakes so they can be identified and resolved.
The CVE naming standard is the most widely used worldwide for cybersecurity issues. As a community standard, it’s used by most major vendors and is supported by the ITU-T (International Telecommunication Union) Cybersecurity Rapporteur Group. When an information technology (IT) system or app communicates with another, the two must be compatible to exchange data. The compatibility level depends on the IT organization’s capabilities and needs. The foundational (level 1) level of interoperability allows for a single vulnerability entry from a system to be received by a different IT system without the receiving system needing to interpret or translate the information.
Reliability
The CVE List acts as a standardized dictionary of publically known software vulnerabilities. This enables security tools to identify and detect vulnerability threats. The CVE database is updated regularly by the MITRE Corporation. It is also a foundation for other services like the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), which uses it to evaluate vulnerabilities and prioritize them.
This standardized approach to vulnerability information makes it easier for vendors, researchers, and organizations to work together to improve cybersecurity. It also supports the consistent use of security tools and vulnerability management processes, ensuring organizations know all relevant vulnerabilities and can mitigate them.
In addition, the CVE naming format helps reduce duplication of effort in developing and maintaining vulnerability detection methods and systems by providing a clear, everyday language for communicating about vulnerabilities. This, in turn, reduces the time needed to detect new vulnerabilities and provides more consistency and reliability in the results of automated scanning and detection tools.
The granularity of CVE names allows organizations to filter CVEs based on their inventory of hardware and software assets so that they receive notifications about only the relevant vulnerabilities. This capability, along with the ability to customize CVE scan results and set up a vulnerability alert system, enables them to quickly adapt to changes in their environment and maintain a secure posture against existing and emerging vulnerabilities.
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