The Homeland Security Systems Engineering and Development Institute, sponsored by CISA and operated by MITRE, has released the 2022 Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Weaknesses list. The list uses data from the National Vulnerability Database to compile the most frequent and critical errors that can lead to serious vulnerabilities in software. An attacker can often exploit these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system, obtain sensitive information, or cause a denial-of-service condition. This year’s list also incorporates updated weakness data for recent Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure records in the dataset that are part of CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog.
CISA encourages users and administrators to review the 2022 CWE Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Weaknesses and evaluate recommended mitigations to determine those most suitable to adopt.
To create the list, the CWE Team leveraged Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE®) data found within the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) National Vulnerability Database (NVD) and the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) scores associated with each CVE record, including a focus on CVE Records from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog. A formula was applied to the data to score each weakness based on prevalence and severity.
The dataset analyzed to calculate the 2022 Top 25 contained a total of 37,899 CVE Records from the previous two calendar years.
