We Speak CVE

Shannon Sabens of CrowdStrike chats with Dave Morse, program coordination lead for the CVE Program, about the myths and facts of the CVE Numbering Authority (CNA) partner onboarding process.

Truth and facts about the following topics are discussed: duration and complexity of the onboarding process; the fact that there is no fee to participate; ease of incorporating assigning CVE Identifiers (CVE IDs) and publishing CVE Records into an organization’s existing coordinated vulnerability disclosure (CVD) processes; availability of automated tools for CNAs; the CVE JSON Record format and available guidance; role of Roots and Top-Level Roots and how they help CNAs; importance of CNAs determining their own scopes; disclosure policies; the community aspect of being a CNA and the availability of peer support; the value of CNAs participating in one or more CVE Working Groups, especially the CNA Organization of Peers (COOP); and much more!

Host Shannon Sabens speaks with Art Manion and Kent Landfield, all three of whom are CVE Board members and CVE Working Group (WG) chairs, about the all-new “CVE® Numbering Authority (CNA) Operational Rules Version 4.0.” 

Topics discussed include the new fundamental concept embedded throughout the rules called the “right of refusal”; how CVE assignment is technology neutral (i.e., cloud, artificial intelligence, etc.); end-of-life assignments; the dispute process; how CNAs can add additional data to their CVE Records such as CVSS, CWE, and CPE information at the time of disclosure for use by downstream consumers; and the expected positive impact of the rules on CNAs and the vulnerability management ecosystem. 

CNA Rules v4.0 - https://www.cve.org/ResourcesSupport/AllResources/CNARules 

Host Shannon Sabens of CrowdStrike chats with Benjamin Edwards and Sander Vinberg, both of Bitsight, about analyzing vulnerability data in the CVE List. This is a follow-on to their “CVE Is The Worst Vulnerability Framework (Except For All The Others)” talk at CVE/FIRST VulnCon 2024.

Topics discussed include the types of vulnerabilities and vulnerability intelligence they reviewed and the different ways they approached the data; how CVE is a really good framework for compiling information about, and communicating effectively about, vulnerabilities; how increasing the number of CVE Numbering Authorities (CNAs) through federation has improved the quantity and quality of data produced by the program over time; how the overall quality of CVE List data will improve for the entire vulnerability management ecosystem as more CNAs include CVSS, CWE, CPE, etc., information when their CVE Records are published; and much, much, more! 

In this episode — recorded live at “CVE/FIRST VulnCon 2024” — CVE Board member and CVE podcast host Shannon Sabens of CrowdStrike chats with the three newest CVE Board members: Madison Oliver of GitHub Security Lab, Tod Beardsley of Austin Hackers Anonymous (AHA!), and MegaZone of F5 who joins as the new CVE Numbering Authority (CNA) Liaison to the Board.

Topics include how and why each new member joined the board, the impact that participating in CVE Working Groups had on their decisions to become Board members, how federation and the ongoing addition of new CNA partners has significantly improved the CVE Program, how the program is voluntary, and how those who participate have the ability to make significant impacts in improving vulnerability management at an international level, and more.

Host Shannon Sabens speaks with Art Manion and Kent Landfield, all three of whom are CVE Board members and CVE Working Group (WG) chairs, about CVE Records.  Discussion topics include the CVE Record Lifecycle, the three “states” of CVE Records (RESERVED, PUBLISHED, and REJECTED), the current “tags” in use with CVE Records (EXCLUSIVELY-HOSTED-SERVICE; UNSUPPORTED-WHEN-ASSIGNED; and DISPUTED), the difference between the REJECTED state and the DISPUTED tag, how a DISPUTED tag can be temporary or indefinite, and much more. 

Learn how CVE Numbering Authority (CNA) partners—ranging from large to small organizations, proprietary and open-source products or projects, disparate business sectors, and different geographic locations—are overseen and supported within the CVE Program by “Top-Level Roots” and “Roots.” Topics include the roles and responsibilities of the two different types of Roots; how their work benefits the CNAs under their care; how they recruit new CNA partners, including suggestions for addressing upper management concerns if a CNA prospect organization is hesitant to partner as a CNA; how they work with and support their CNAs over time; how the “Council of Roots” works together to enhance and help improve the program overall; and much more. All current CVE Program Top-Level Roots and Roots are represented in this podcast.

In addition to host Shannon Sabens of CrowdStrike, speakers include Julia Turkevich of the CISA Top-Level Root and CISA ICS Root, Dave Morse of the MITRE Top-Level Root, Cristian Cadenas Sarmiento of the INCIBE Root, Paul Dev of the Google Root, Tomo Ito of the JPCERT/CC Root, and Yogesh Mittal of the Red Hat Root.

LINKS:

• Benefits of being a CNA partner 
• How to become a CNA partner 
• Partner onboarding process 
• List of current CNA partners 

Shannon Sabens of CrowdStrike and Kent Landfield of Trellix, both of whom are CVE Board members and CVE Working Group chairs, speak about how the new CVE Record format — with its new structured data format and optional information fields — will benefit and provide enhanced value to consumers of CVE content moving forward. 

Specific topics discussed include how the new CVE Record format will enable more complete vulnerability information to be captured early on in the advisory process and how that will benefit consumers; the ability for CVE content consumers to streamline and more easily automate their use of CVE Records because the data format is standardized and machine-readable; the automated creation and publication of CVE Records by CVE Numbering Authorities (currently, 320+ CNAs from 35+ countries!), which means more quality CVE Records can be produced at a faster pace than ever before for use by the worldwide community; and, for the ability of official CVE Program “Authorized Data Publishers (ADPs)” to enrich the content of already published CVE Records with additional risk scores, affected product lists, versions, references, translations, and so on, (learn more about ADPs in this CVE podcast).

Vulnerability scoring methods for CVE Records are also discussed, including NVD’s use of CVSS, CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog, and more.

Host Shannon Sabens of CrowdStrike chats with Julia Turkevich of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) about the myths and facts of partnering with the CVE Program as a CVE Numbering Authority (CNA).

Truth and facts about the following myths are discussed:

Myth #1:  Only a specific category of software vendors can become CNAs.
Myth #2:  Organizations cannot leverage their existing vulnerability management and disclosure processes when they become a CNA.
Myth #3:  The requirements for becoming a CNA are overwhelming and extensive.
Myth #4:  A fee is required to become a CNA.
Myth #5:  The CNA onboarding process is too complicated and time-consuming.
Myth #6:  Organizations cannot choose the Top-Level Root or Root they want to work with.

The purpose and overall structure of the CVE Program and CISA's role in recruiting and managing CNAs within its Top-Level Root scope of industrial control system (ICS) and operation technology (OT) are also discussed.

LINKS:

• How to Become a CNA
• CNA Onboarding Process Overview
• CVE Program Structure
• CISA ICS Top-Level Root partner details page
• List of CVE Program Partners

Kris Britton of the CVE Program speaks with Lisa Olson of Microsoft about Microsoft’s journey adopting the new CVE Services and CVE JSON 5.0 into their vulnerability management infrastructure and how they used them for the first time as part of Microsoft’s February 2023 Patch Tuesday.

Discussion topics include the CVE JSON 5.0 schema mind map and other schema resources on GitHub; reviewing CVE JSON 5.0 records on the CVE.ORG website; using Vulnogram, or one of the other CVE Services clients, for creating, editing, and reviewing CVE JSON 5.0 records; leveraging the CVE Services Test Environment (learn more here); how separate credentials are required for the official CVE Services and the CVE Services Test Environment; learning about CVE Services and CVE JSON 5.0 updates by attending Automation Working Group (AWG), Quality Working Group (QWG), and CNA Coordination Working Group (CNACWG) meetings; leveraging the CVE Services Slack channel for support; and more.

Resources mentioned in the podcast: https://www.cve.org/Media/News/item/podcast/2023/03/08/Microsofts-Journey-CVE-Services-CVE-JSON-5 

Shannon Sabens of CrowdStrike chats with Madison Oliver of GitHub Security Lab about the recent release of OpenSSF’s “Guidance for Security Researchers to Coordinate Vulnerability Disclosures with Open Source Software Projects” document and the important step of obtaining a CVE ID in the coordinated vulnerability disclosure process for open-source vulnerabilities.

OpenSSF is a “cross-industry organization that brings together the industry’s most important open source security initiatives and the individuals and companies that support them.” The CVD Guide was released by OpenSSF’s Vulnerability Disclosure working group in September 2022, which in 2021 released its “Guide to Implementing a Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Process for Open Source Projects” document, both of which are discussed by Shannon and Madison. 

Other discussion topics in this episode include the importance of finders (e.g., security researchers, hackers, academics, bug bounty hunters, etc.) in vulnerability management, how finders can expedite their requests to software owners with quality information in their initial requests, OpenSSF’s vulnerability report template and how using it can help with requests, importance of obtaining a CVE ID for open source and all vulnerabilities, best practices for working with CVE Numbering Authorities (CNAs), managing expectations for turnaround times, the CVE Program’s CVE Record Dispute Policy, why all participants should remember that they are interacting with people in all aspects of the vulnerability management process, and more.

 LINKS:

OpenSSF CVD Guide – https://github.com/ossf/oss-vulnerability-guide/blob/main/finder-guide.md#readme

OpenSSF vulnerability report template – https://github.com/ossf/oss-vulnerability-guide/blob/main/templates/notifications/disclosure.md 

OpenSSF Implementing a CVD Process Guide – https://github.com/ossf/oss-vulnerability-guide/blob/main/maintainer-guide.md#readme 

CVE Record Dispute Policy – https://www.cve.org/Resources/General/Policies/CVE-Record-Dispute-Policy.pdf

CNAs – https://www.cve.org/ProgramOrganization/CNAs