What is the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog?

Hackers, they’re always out there, ready to attack. The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) exists to counter such threats. At the core of CISA is the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) database, which curates exposed software weak spots.

This is a critically important matter, and as such, it falls under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security. However, because the catalog is publicly available, there’s no reason it can’t be used by anyone else who’s worried about cybersecurity.

Identifying vulnerabilities and applying protective action  

CISA KEV is a database of security flaws in software applications and weaknesses that have been exposed and leveraged by attackers. This catalog is publicly available online at CISA KEV.

The catalog can also be used by concerned businesses and even by cautious individuals, too. Vulnerabilities are listed by vendor, by product, by date, and by a description of the flaw, and actions that users can take to resolve the exploit are listed alongside each one. The full catalog is 90 pages long, but there is a search function, which makes it easier to find an exploited program. From here, software updates and patches can be applied as they’re released until the vulnerability is mitigated.

Of course, it would be better if software didn’t have exploitable flaws. In the real world, however, software is built from complex pieces of code, so it’s prone to security issues. Hackers, including those that work for other governments, are always probing for such weaknesses.

How does CISA optimize the KEV catalog?

CISA KEV is essentially a tabulated inventory of vendor-organized software flaws. These flaws have been exploited in the wild by cyberattackers. One method of using the resource is simply to scan the list for a particular software package, but that’s not the most efficient way to use such an important resource.

To optimize application function in a more systematic manner, the information has been made available in CSV and JSON formats, which can be downloaded in seconds and plugged into a computer database.

Mission to strengthen CISA and KEV imperviousness

Several points have become clear on reading through the CISA mission statement. The cyber defense agency is highly invested when it comes to protecting America’s governmental data. They protect information in the same way that U.S. armed forces protect the nation. Secondly, CISA KEV is a trusted list. Even so, there are some weaknesses in the program.

For example, cyberattackers aren’t coming from the same quarters that threaten regular businesses. Rather, they’re coming from other nations, from countries who’d like nothing more than to throw sand in the smoothly operating gears of the U.S., government. That’s an unacceptable risk.  Another concern is that the CISA KEV, although trusted, isn’t complete. It prioritizes the severest software threats, that’s quite true, but there’s more work to be done.

Adding the CISA and KEV enrichment dashboard as a secondary layer of data protection can only be a good thing. It doesn’t replace having centralized cybersecurity measures in place, though. The dashboard reinforces the already publicly available catalog by adding new fields to the database. These include such data as attack trend indicators and security scores. Higher-risk vulnerabilities can then be addressed quickly and corrected as software updates become available.

Although not perfect, the existing CISA KEV is a trusted source of exploited software vulnerabilities. Perhaps just as important as any other point made here, the catalog is a government resource, but it has been made publicly available so that other organizations and businesses can take advantage of the cybersecurity resource.