The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) system describes itself as a dictionary that provides definitions for publicly disclosed vulnerabilities and disclosures. Its goal is to make it easier to share cybersecurity-related data across groups and technologies, understanding that the benefit of open coordination outweighs the risk of publicly advertising valid attacks. It's useful to keep in mind that CVE is a method for linking vulnerability databases and not a vulnerability database itself. That said, you'll often find CVE IDs to links to CVE information pages integrated into tools designed to detect known vulnerabilities. CVE entries are even built into the U.S National Vulnerability Database.
The structure of a CVE ID is direct: the identifier consists of the year plus a four digit (or more...