Security Standards & CVE Ecosystem

The Gist: Security vulnerabilities are catalogued and scored using a global system of standards. Understanding how CWE, CVE, OWASP, and CVSS work together helps you prioritize remediation and communicate risk effectively.

How the Standards Work Together

CWE: Common Weakness Enumeration

CWE is a community-developed dictionary of software and hardware weakness types. Think of it as the species classification for security bugs.

How we use CWE: Every Interlace rule maps to one or more CWEs, helping you understand the class of vulnerability the rule prevents.

// Rule: no-sql-injection
// CWE: CWE-89 (Improper Neutralization of Special Elements in SQL Command)
const query = `SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = ${userId}`; // ❌ Flagged

CVE: Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures

CVE is a dictionary of publicly disclosed security vulnerabilities, each with a unique ID. If CWE is the species, CVE is a specific individual animal caught in the wild.

How we use CVE: Where applicable, Interlace rules reference real-world CVEs that demonstrate the vulnerability pattern the rule prevents.

CVSS: Common Vulnerability Scoring System

CVSS is the industry standard for assessing vulnerability severity on a 0-10 scale. Version 3.1 is currently most widely used.

CVSS Metrics

CVSS scores are calculated based on three metric groups:

OWASP Top 10

OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) maintains several "Top 10" lists categorizing the most critical security risks:

The NVD: National Vulnerability Database

The NVD is the U.S. government's repository of vulnerability data, maintained by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). It enriches CVE data with:

• CVSS scores (calculated by NVD analysts)
• CWE mappings (vulnerability taxonomy)
• CPE data (affected products/versions)
• References (patches, advisories)

How CVEs Get Published

The CVE publication process involves multiple organizations and validation steps:

CVE Numbering Authorities (CNAs)

CNAs are organizations authorized to assign CVE IDs. As of 2024, there are 300+ CNAs worldwide:

NVD Enrichment Process

When a CVE is published, NVD analysts add critical metadata:

NVD API 2.0

The NVD API 2.0 allows programmatic access to vulnerability data:

# Fetch CVEs for a specific CWE
curl "https://services.nvd.nist.gov/rest/json/cves/2.0?cweId=CWE-89"

# Fetch a specific CVE
curl "https://services.nvd.nist.gov/rest/json/cves/2.0?cveId=CVE-2023-46132"

# Fetch recently modified CVEs
curl "https://services.nvd.nist.gov/rest/json/cves/2.0?lastModStartDate=2024-01-01T00:00:00.000&lastModEndDate=2024-01-31T23:59:59.999"

Key NVD API Endpoints

How Interlace Uses These Standards

Every Interlace rule is enriched with security metadata:

Current Status: Static CVSS Scores

For example:

• SQL Injection (CWE-89): 9.8 — arbitrary database queries can lead to complete data breach
• Hardcoded Secrets (CWE-798): 9.8 — exposed credentials enable direct system access
• Missing Auth Check (CWE-862): 7.5 — unauthorized access to protected resources

Coming Soon: @interlace/sync Engine

We're building an automated synchronization engine that will:

⚡ Key Takeaways

📚 Further Reading

Official Documentation

API & Developer Resources

Governance & Process

OWASP Resources

🔗 Next Steps