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Volatility in CVE: Is the Vulnerability Intelligence Ecosystem Entering a New Chapter?
Doubts surrounding CVE’s longevity are creating substantial volatility in the cybersecurity landscape. Watch Flashpoint’s Community Call to learn the latest developments, how to stay resilient, and how to identify the path forward.
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Recent Volatility in the CVE Ecosystem
Recent volatility in the funding of the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program is causing significant disarray in the vulnerability intelligence ecosystem. On April 15, 2025, a leaked letter from MITRE, the maintainer of the CVE program, stated that the program would soon expire due to contracting issues. However, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced on April 16 that it has executed a contract option to prevent any disruption in CVE services. According to news sources, this extension will last for eleven months, through March 2026.
Flashpoint is actively monitoring this situation. Here are the latest developments so far:
- April 15, 2025
- A letter from MITRE to the CVE Board was leaked online, implying that CVE may lose funding.
- April 16, 2025
- CISA announces that it will ensure the continuation of CVE.
- CVE board members establish the CVE foundation.
- The European Union Vulnerability Database (EUVD) opens due to uncertainty of US-based vulnerability databases.
Why CVE Matters
While CISA’s announcement has stymied the halt of CVE in the short-term, many questions still remain. This has caused many organizations, security vendors, and the press, to ask the same question: What happens if CVE goes away?
In today’s vulnerability intelligence ecosystem, nearly every organization’s vulnerability management framework relies on it. Since its inception in 1999, The CVE system has grown into a critical global cybersecurity utility, relied upon by nearly all vulnerability scanners, SIEM platforms, patch management tools, threat intelligence feeds, and compliance reports.
CVE and its counterpart, the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) have already shown symptoms of decline. Throughout 2024 and 2025 the industry has observed increasing amounts of incomplete vulnerability data, disruption of compliance reporting, and delays in coordinated disclosure and vendor patch releases—all of which negatively impact downstream systems and processes. However, a complete shutdown of CVE would not merely be a service degradation. It is a loss of institutional infrastructure that would jeopardize billions of dollars in cybersecurity investments.
A New Chapter in the Vulnerability Intelligence Ecosystem?
At this time, the long-term health of the CVE program is uncertain. The current budget cuts to CVE could either signal a move toward a more unified US government vulnerability cataloging effort, or could mark the end of freely available US government vulnerability tracking.
The breakdown of the CVE system presents a chance to create a new, improved vulnerability management model. This new model should prioritize speed, context, transparency, and actionable insights, which the CVE system has struggled to provide.
How Flashpoint VulnDB Maintains Stability During CVE Disruptions
While CVE IDs can still be a useful data point in a vulnerability management strategy, they should not be the sole basis. Instead, the next generation of security needs to be built on practices that are resilient, diversified, and intelligence-driven, meaning that they can adapt to changes, use multiple sources of information, and focus on providing insights that can be used to take action, such as:
- Threat actor behavior and proof-of-concept availability
- Likelihood of exploitation in the wild
- Business context such as critical asset exposure
- Relevance to ransomware and data breach campaigns
Flashpoint’s vulnerability database fully maps to CVE, covering IT, OT, IoT, CoTs, and open-source libraries and dependencies. It also catalogs more than 100,000 vulnerabilities missed by the public source.
Watch Our Community Call to Learn More
To help organizations better understand the current situation, Flashpoint hosted a Community Call on April 17, 2025. Watch the recording to learn the latest developments involving CVE and newly emerging vulnerability databases such as the EUVD, how to stay resilient in this shifting landscape, and identify the path to move forward.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the “new chapter” in vulnerability intelligence and how does Flashpoint Ignite help?
The “new chapter” in vulnerability intelligence refers to the landscape shift from CVE towards independent, vendor-neutral data. As public systems like the NVD face analysis delays, Flashpoint Ignite provides a reliable alternative by enriching vulnerability data autonomously. This helps organizations avoid the “analysis gap” by providing severity scores and technical details for new flaws weeks before they appear in public databases.
| Intelligence Layer | Public Database Status | Flashpoint Ignite Status |
| Data Enrichment | Experiencing significant backlogs and delays. | Real-time analysis by independent researchers. |
| Exploit Context | Often missing or outdated. | Integrated with threat actor chatter and TTPs. |
| Coverage | Limited to flaws with official CVE IDs. | Includes 100,000+ non-CVE vulnerabilities. |
How does Flashpoint VulnDB address the NVD analysis backlog?
Flashpoint VulnDB addresses the NVD backlog by utilizing a dedicated research team that identifies and catalogs vulnerabilities across thousands of sources. Because Flashpoint does not wait for public enrichment, VulnDB users receive CVSS scores, CPE metadata, and remediation advice for thousands of flaws that are currently sitting in an “Awaiting Analysis” state at the NVD. This ensures that your patching cycle never stops due to government or vendor delays.
- Independent Scoring: Flashpoint provides its own severity ratings based on technical impact.
- Proactive Research: Researchers find flaws in third-party libraries and niche software.
- Immediate Alerts: Notifies users of critical vulnerabilities as soon as they are disclosed.
Why is Flashpoint’s independent intelligence vital for risk-based prioritization?
Flashpoint’s independent intelligence is vital for risk-based prioritization because it provides the ground-truth data needed to distinguish between a minor flaw and a major threat. While public feeds are in a state of volatility, Flashpoint monitors the dark web for active exploitation evidence. By combining VulnDB with CTI, Flashpoint allows teams to prioritize their limited resources on the vulnerabilities that threat actors are actually discussing and weaponizing.
| Prioritization Factor | Flashpoint Strategic Advantage |
| Exploitability | Identifies if a vulnerability has publicly available exploit code. |
| Social Risk | Tracks threat actor interest and chatter on illicit forums. |
| Patch Availability | Provides immediate links to vendor fixes and workarounds. |