The Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) by MITRE is a categorized list of software and hardware weaknesses. It is widely used by security professionals, developers, and testers to identify and address potential vulnerabilities in code and systems. CWE serves as a standard reference for:
- Improving secure software development through awareness of common coding errors.
- Enabling automated tools to identify weaknesses in source code or compiled binaries.
- Supporting risk assessment by helping prioritize issues based on prevalence and severity.
- Creating mappings to other standards such as CVE and OWASP Top 10.
CWE helps in building more secure applications and fostering a deeper understanding of underlying software issues that can lead to exploitable vulnerabilities.