CVE, which stands for Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures, is a publicly available system that catalogs known cybersecurity vulnerabilities. Maintained by the MITRE Corporation and overseen by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the CVE program assigns unique identifiers to documented security flaws in software and firmware.
Each CVE entry helps security professionals, software vendors, and IT teams identify, assess, and remediate vulnerabilities consistently across tools and platforms. The CVE system plays a central role in vulnerability management, threat intelligence, and software supply chain security.
What is a CVE?
A CVE is a unique identifier assigned to a publicly known security vulnerability. These identifiers serve as a standardized way of referring to vulnerabilities across different organizations, tools, and platforms. CVE entries are not vulnerability databases themselves—they do not contain exploit code or patch details. Instead, each CVE record provides:
- A unique CVE ID (e.g., CVE-2023-4567)
- A brief description of the vulnerability
- References to external sources with additional technical or remediation details
The CVE system is designed to make it easier for security professionals to share, coordinate, and prioritize efforts around common threats. It also reduces confusion by ensuring that different security tools and vendors are referring to the same vulnerability using the same identifier.
The role of CVE in cybersecurity
CVE plays a foundational role in the cybersecurity ecosystem. It enables consistent communication and decision-making across security teams, vendors, and regulatory bodies. Some of its key functions include:
Standardized identification
With thousands of vulnerabilities disclosed annually, CVE offers a universal identifier for each one, eliminating ambiguity and helping organizations speak the same language when discussing security issues.
Coordination and collaboration
CVE entries are used by security researchers, vendors, and maintainers to coordinate vulnerability disclosures. They help avoid duplicate efforts and ensure that security issues are acknowledged, documented, and addressed appropriately.
Integration with security tools
Vulnerability scanners, threat detection systems, and patch management tools often use CVE identifiers to report, track, and prioritize findings. This makes it easier for organizations to correlate data across systems and respond more efficiently.
Compliance and auditing
Security frameworks such as PCI-DSS, NIST, and ISO 27001 often require organizations to have a formal process for tracking and mitigating known vulnerabilities—typically identified through CVEs.
How the CVE process works
The CVE lifecycle begins when a vulnerability is discovered by a researcher, software vendor, or member of the public. The process typically includes the following steps:
- Discovery: A security flaw is identified in software, hardware, or firmware.
- Report submission: The discoverer contacts a CVE Numbering Authority (CNA)—an organization authorized to assign CVEs—or MITRE directly.
- CVE assignment: If the issue meets the CVE criteria, the CNA assigns a CVE ID to the vulnerability and provides a basic description.
- Publication: The CVE entry is published on the official CVE website, where it becomes publicly accessible and referenced in other databases like the National Vulnerability Database (NVD).
- Enrichment: Additional information—such as CVSS scores, references, and mitigation steps—may be added by external databases or researchers.
Over time, the CVE record may be updated with improved descriptions, links to advisories, or clarification as more information becomes available.
CVE Numbering Authorities (CNAs)
CVE identifiers are assigned by CVE Numbering Authorities, or CNAs. These are organizations that have been authorized by MITRE to assign CVEs to vulnerabilities affecting their own products or the software they maintain.
Currently, there are more than 450 CNAs worldwide, including major software vendors, open source project maintainers, and security research organizations. Each CNA follows a set of rules to ensure that CVE assignments are accurate, non-duplicative, and aligned with MITRE’s criteria.
In some cases, a vulnerability may not be assigned a CVE due to limited impact, lack of public disclosure, or failure to meet CVE’s minimum documentation requirements.
CVSS and CVE severity scoring
While CVEs provide identification and description, they do not include a severity rating by default. Severity scoring is typically handled by the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), which is managed separately by FIRST.org.
CVSS assigns a score between 0.0 and 10.0 based on factors such as:
- Attack vector: how can the attacker access the system?
- Attack complexity: how difficult is it to exploit the vulnerability?
- Privileges required: what privileges does the attacker need before exploiting the vulnerability?
- Confidentiality: What is the potential for unauthorized access to sensitive information?
These are just a few of the factors used to determine the CVSS score, which is often used to prioritize patching and risk management. The U.S. National Vulnerability Database (NVD) often links CVE entries to their CVSS scores, offering additional context to help organizations prioritize remediation.
CVE and software supply chain security
In today’s software development landscape, organizations increasingly rely on third-party components, libraries, and containers—many of which may contain known CVEs. This makes CVE tracking essential for securing the software supply chain.
Organizations often rely on the following tools to identify and remediate CVEs:
- Software Composition Analysis (SCA) tools for flagging known vulnerable libraries in third-party components
- Static Application Security Testing (SAST) tools for detecting vulnerabilities in first-party codebases
- Container image scanning capabilities to identify base images with unpatched CVEs
- SBOM (Software Bill of Materials) to understand application components and identify associated CVEs
By mapping CVEs to software artifacts, security teams can ensure that third-party risks are visible and managed continuously.
Challenges with CVE tracking
Despite its value, the CVE system is not without limitations. Some of the common challenges include:
- Time lags: There can be delays between vulnerability discovery and CVE publication, especially if disputes arise during disclosure.
- Incomplete coverage: Not all vulnerabilities are reported or assigned CVEs, particularly in niche or unmaintained software.
- Duplicate or ambiguous entries: In some cases, similar vulnerabilities may receive separate CVEs or conflicting descriptions.
- Lack of context: CVE entries are often brief, requiring users to consult additional sources (e.g., vendor advisories, NVD) for mitigation guidance.
To address these gaps, many organizations use tools that enrich CVE data with exploit availability, patch status, business impact, and asset exposure.
How Orca Security helps
The Orca Cloud Security Platform provides full coverage and comprehensive risk detection across the multi-cloud environments of AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, and Kubernetes.
With Orca, security teams can:
- Automatically detect vulnerabilities across the entire application lifecycle—including pre- and post-deployment
- Identify whether vulnerabilities are reachable, exposed to the internet, or associated with high-value assets to prioritize remediation efforts
- Leverage 20+ vulnerability data sources to discover and prioritize vulnerabilities across your entire cloud estate.
- Go beyond CVSS scores to consider the context of cloud assets, their connections, and their risks so you can understand which vulnerabilities need to be addressed first.
- Remediate vulnerabilities quickly and easily using AI-driven fixes and instructions or guidance from Orca experts.
Orca empowers organizations to optimize their Vulnerability Management programs and focus on the risks that matter most to their business.
