The database will customarily describe the identified vulnerability, assess the potential impact on affected systems, and any workarounds or updates to mitigate the issue.
The primary purpose of CVE, run by MITRE, is to attempt to aggregate public vulnerabilities and give them a standardized format unique identifier.
In the past, CVE was paramount for linking vulnerability databases so critical patches and debugs can be shared to inhibit hackers from accessing sensitive information on private systems.
[7] The NVD is a primary cyber security referral tool for individuals and industries alike providing informative resources on current vulnerabilities.
Similar to the OSVDB, the NVD publishes impact ratings and categorises material into an index to provide users with an intelligible search system.
The justification for limiting access to individuals is to impede hackers from being versed in corporation system vulnerabilities which could potentially be further exploited.
The temporal metrics denote the mutable nature of a vulnerability for example the credibility of an exploitability, the current state of a system violation and the development of any workarounds that could be applied.
Furthermore, it details the primary target of a vulnerability ranging from personal systems to large organisations and the number of potentially affected individuals.
The benefits derived from vulnerability databases to consumers and organisations are exponential as information systems become increasingly embedded, our dependency and reliance on them grows, as does the opportunity for data exploitation.
[19] Although the functionality of a database may appear unblemished, without rigorous testing, the exiguous flaws can allow hackers to infiltrate a system's cyber security.
[23] Data protection is essential to any business as personal and financial information is a key asset and the purloining of sensitive material can discredit the reputation of a firm.
If systems were devised with greater diligence, they may be impenetrable from SQL and NoSQL injections making vulnerability databases redundant.