FixV2W: Correcting Invalid CVE-CWE Mappings with Knowledge Graph Embeddings
Sevval Simsek, Varsha Athreya, David Starobinski
TLDR
FixV2W uses knowledge graph embeddings and longitudinal trends to correct invalid CVE-CWE mappings in NVD, enhancing vulnerability management.
Key contributions
- Introduces FixV2W, a lightweight approach using knowledge graph embeddings and longitudinal trends.
- Analyzes historical remapping patterns and hierarchical data to predict precise CWE mappings.
- Correctly predicts CWEs for 69% of exploited vulnerabilities with prior invalid mappings.
- Significantly improves ML models, boosting MRR from 0.174 to 0.608 for unknown CVE-CWEs.
Why it matters
Inaccurate CVE-CWE mappings in NVD hinder effective vulnerability management and risk assessment. FixV2W addresses this critical issue by providing a more reliable method for mapping, thus improving the accuracy of security analyses. This helps identify and thwart emerging threats more effectively.
Original Abstract
Accurate mapping between Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) and Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) entries is critical for effective vulnerability management and risk assessment. However, public databases, such as the National Vulnerability Database (NVD), suffer from inconsistent and incomplete CVE to CWE mappings, complicating automated analysis and remediation. We introduce FixV2W, a lightweight approach that leverages knowledge graph embeddings and longitudinal trends to improve mapping accuracy of the NVD. FixV2W systematically analyzes historical remapping patterns and leverages hierarchical relationships within NVD and CWE data to predict more precise CWE mappings for vulnerabilities linked to Prohibited or Discouraged categories. We run extensive experimental evaluation of FixV2W, based on test data set collected between August 2021 and December 2024. Considering the Top 10 ranked predictions, the results show that FixV2W predicts the correct CWE mappings for 69% of exploited vulnerabilities that had invalid CWEs before they were exploited. We also show that FixV2W significantly improves the performance of ML models relying on NVD data. For instance, for a model geared at uncovering unknown CVE-CWE mappings, FixV2W improves the Mean Reciprocal Rank (MRR) from 0.174 to 0.608. These results show that FixV2W is a promising approach to identify and thwart emerging threats.
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