ATTENTION: This page has been moved to ARCHIVE STATUS. Please go to the Reserve IDs & Publish Records for CNAs page on the CVE.ORG website for the most current information.


The CVEList GitHub Submission Pilot — which will be deprecated by the CVE Program on June 30, 2023 — was a temporary method for CVE Number Authorities (CNAs) to submit CVE Records (by GitHub pull requests) to be processed and posted to the official CVE List. Answers to frequently asked questions about the deprecation of the pilot are below.

When is the GitHub Submission Pilot scheduled to be deprecated?

The CVE Program’s Tactical Working Group (TWG) has determined that the CVEList GitHub Submission Pilot will be deprecated on June 30, 2023. This means that beginning at 1600 UTC (noon Eastern time) on July 1, 2023, any CVE Record submissions (i.e., Pull Requests) to the CVEList GitHub Submission Pilot will not be processed and posted to the CVE List.

Why is the CVEList GitHub Submission Pilot being deprecated?

As its name suggests, the GitHub Submission Pilot was never meant to be a permanent solution for automated CVE Record Submission. Although, notably, it has been operational for a long time.

In October 2022, the CVE Program fielded its new solution for automated CVE Record Submission with the “Soft Deployment” of CVE Services - Record Submission and Upload Service (RSUS) version 2.1.1. During the Soft Deploy period (between November 2022 and later March 2023) the CNA community began using the new services and used the clients/libraries that have been developed to support adoption of the new CVE JSON 5.0 format.

On March 29, 2023, the CVE Program announced that it had met the CVE Services “Hard Deployment” milestone meaning that the critical “issues” identified during the “Soft Deploy” period had been addressed and CNAs could now use CVE Services and have confidence that submitted CVE Records in CVE JSON 5.0 format would be posted accurately and expeditiously to the CVE JSON 5.0 List. With this milestone CNAs, as well as downstream users, could view and download the JSON 5.0 CVE List.

With these milestones being met, it is now time to move forward in deprecating the submission of JSON 4.0 Records (and hence the CVEList GitHub Submission Pilot) and take the next steps to full adoption of the new CVE Record JSON 5.0 format.

Will the new CVE Services provide my organization with all of the functions that I have available to me now?

CNAs can reserve CVE IDs and Submit/Update CVE Records that they own using the new CVE Services. CNAs will see CVE Record Submissions/Updates within an hour or less of submission on the JSON 5.0 CVE List which is viewable at cve.org as well as in a new cvelistV5 repository on GitHub.com. (Note that this repository is designed in the same manner as the repository under the CVEList GitHub Submission Pilot).

CNAs will not be able to update CVE records that are “owned” by a different CNA. Although this capability exists today in the GitHub Submission Pilot, this function will not be implemented in CVE Services until the Automated Data Publishing interfaces are available. This capability is the next priority for the CVE Program Automation Upgrade project. A schedule for this effort is forthcoming.

Will the CVEList GitHub Submission Pilot deprecation coincide with the deprecation of the legacy format CVE List (i.e., based on the CVE JSON 4.0 format) hosted on the cve.mitre.org website?

No, the specific deprecation date for the JSON 4.0 based CVE List has not been determined yet (although it has been announced that it will take place no later than December 31, 2023). This means that, although the CVEList GitHub Submission Pilot is ending, the legacy CVE List will continue to be available for Downstream users until announced otherwise. However, we strongly recommend instead using https://github.com/CVEProject/cvelistV5, which addresses the same types of Bulk Download use cases, along with new features for added value. When a CVE Record is published or updated, its current content first becomes available on the cve.org website, and then becomes available within this Bulk Download capability in an hour or less.

Where can I find information about CVE Services and the new CVE Record JSON 5.0 format?

You can get more information about CVE Services (i.e., how to get started), as well as information about the CVE JSON 5.0 format on the CVE Services page on the CVE.ORG website.

Much of the guidance provided focuses on CNAs entering CVE Record information manually (i.e., the web clients are very “human user” centric).

Is there specific guidance/support available for engaging the CVE Services in a more automated fashion?

The following resources are available to help CNAs build a more automated infrastructure to submit CVE JSON 5.0 format CVE Records:

  • CVE Services Interface Specification — CVE Services presents itself as a series of APIs addressable from the Internet. You can view the API specification here.
  • CVE Services Testing Instance — The CVE Program has developed a CVE Services Testing Instance to allow CNAs to “test” their automation infrastructure. To support this testing environment there is also a testing website for CNAs to view individual test CVE Records that they post using the Testing Instance.
  • Community Developed Clients — There are community development efforts that have produced automation tools that may be useful for CNA CVE Submission automation:
    • Red Hat cvelib — A library and command line interface for the CVE Services API.
    • CVE CNA Bot — A GitHub action that validates CVE JSON 5.0 records and allows them to be submitted to the CVE Services API. This tool could be used to allow CNAs to continue to use GitHub as part of its CVE Submission process.

5. What are the immediate next steps in the evolution of CVE Services?

Our first priority is to introduce the “Authorized Data Publisher (ADP)” feature so that CVE Program partners can contribute information to CVE Records that were originally published by a different CNA. This feature extends our container architecture so that each participating partner only has write access to the information that they contributed, and cannot replace data from a different partner. This feature is currently in the technical design/implementation phase (the business requirements were approved by the Strategic Planning Working Group (SPWG) in early April 2023). In the coming months, we plan to provide further information and previews of the added value that ADP containers will initially provide, and ultimately document the process for current and new partners to acquire the ADP role.