When news broke that the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) had granted an 11-month extension to MITRE’s contract overseeing the CVE and CWE programs, some in the industry exhaled. But among seasoned cybersecurity professionals, that breath was heavy—not with relief, but with concern. Because while the lights stayed on this time, the system remains one bad budget cycle away from collapse.
This wasn’t a win. It was a bandage on a severed artery.
Understanding CVE and CWE: The Dynamic Duo of Cyber Hygiene
If you’ve ever read a security bulletin or patched your software based on a known bug, chances are you’ve seen a CVE.
CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) acts as the global dictionary of specific software flaws—things like:
“Buffer overflow in XYZ version 3.0 allows remote attackers to execute arbitrary code.”
CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration), on the other hand, zooms out. It categorizes the types of mistakes developers make that lead to vulnerabilities:
“Improper input validation” or “insecure deserialization,” for example.
Think of CVE as the diagnosis and CWE as the underlying condition.
Together, they are essential to the software world’s immune system: developers rely on them to code defensively, vendors use them to coordinate patches, and security teams build entire risk models around them.
Their importance cannot be overstated. In fact, no major security tool, threat feed, or vulnerability scanner functions without them.
The Cost of Centralization
And yet, the very lifeblood of the cybersecurity ecosystem is sustained by a fragile, centralized model.
Both CVE and CWE are U.S.-government-funded programs operated by the MITRE Corporation—a federally funded R&D center. While MITRE has long been respected for its stewardship, cracks have formed in the foundation. As global software supply chains expand and vulnerabilities skyrocket, the weight of maintaining these registries has become immense.
According to vulnerability researchers at CERT/CC, the number of new CWE entries has stagnated, despite the explosion of new exploit patterns emerging in the wild. The research community is struggling to keep up.
Meanwhile, the CVE registry continues to balloon:
| Year | CVEs Published | Top CWE Mapped |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 18,325 | CWE-79 (Cross-site Scripting) |
| 2023 | 26,447 | CWE-787 (Out-of-bounds Write) |
| 2024 | 29,997 (projected) | TBD |
We’re on pace to hit nearly 30,000 CVEs in 2024, but with limited funding and a small team, the ability to process, verify, and publish those vulnerabilities under a consistent taxonomy is faltering.
This creates dangerous gaps in knowledge-sharing—and worse, delays in remediation.
MITRE’s Own Warning: A System on the Brink
The seriousness of the situation was made plain by MITRE itself.
On the eve of the funding deadline, Yosry Barsoum, Vice President at MITRE, issued a warning that read like a cyber emergency alert:
“A lapse in funding would degrade national databases and incident response efforts—not just in the U.S., but everywhere the CVE/CWE frameworks are used.”
This isn’t bureaucratic panic—it’s a global red flag.
If CVE and CWE were to go dark, the ripple effects would include:
- 🛠️ Disruption to global patch management systems, breaking update schedules for thousands of vendors
- 📊 Inconsistencies in vulnerability tracking, leading to misaligned severity scores and confusion across platforms
- ⏱️ Delays in Zero-Day remediation, leaving systems exposed to active exploitation for longer
The scariest part? There is currently no backup. No decentralized alternative. No clear Plan B.
Enter the CVE Foundation: A New Hope?
As the clock ticked toward shutdown, an unexpected announcement shifted the conversation.
A coalition of CVE Board members—including international researchers, nonprofit advocates, and former MITRE collaborators—unveiled the CVE Foundation, a newly established nonprofit organization with a bold vision:
“This is about eliminating a single point of failure,” the board stated in a joint release.
The Foundation aims to eventually assume responsibility for the CVE and CWE programs, removing exclusive U.S. government control and shifting toward neutral, community-driven governance.
Their mission is ambitious but clear:
- 🔓 Ensure open access to vulnerability information for all nations and organizations
- 🌐 Build a global, federated model where no single entity can halt or delay critical cyber infrastructure
- 🛡️ Strengthen resilience by distributing operations across geographies and stakeholders
Think of it as turning CVE from a national project into an international utility—a WHO for software vulnerabilities.
Industry Reaction: Relief, Mixed with Caution
The cyber community had plenty to say. Relief that the system didn’t crash—but frustration that we’re still this close to disaster.
“Glad it’s still running. But we need a future where it doesn’t come down to a midnight decision.”
— Kaitlin Harding, Open Source Security Coalition
“It’s like finding out the traffic light system for the world is controlled by one city. Great until the power goes out.”
— @CyberSecMeg on Twitter
Security vendors, open-source maintainers, and bug bounty hunters have long relied on CVE and CWE for their daily work. The idea that this infrastructure could collapse without congressional intervention is not just absurd—it’s unacceptable.
Final Takeaway: The Clock is Still Ticking
Let’s be clear: CISA’s extension was a stay of execution, not a solution.
CVE and CWE survived this time, but the system is still dangerously brittle.
The world’s most important cybersecurity registries cannot be beholden to short-term contracts, single governments, or unpredictable budgets. In a landscape where a single overlooked flaw can lead to multi-billion-dollar breaches, global cyber hygiene demands an independent, resilient, and transparent backbone.
We’ve been given time. Let’s use it wisely—because next time, the lights might actually go out.
