CWE: Common Weakness Enumeration in Cybersecurity

Vulnerability Management
ByDecipherU Editorial
How is it pronounced?
see-double-you-ee

CWE stands for Common Weakness Enumeration. Common Weakness Enumeration is a community-developed catalog of software and hardware weakness types. Each CWE entry describes a category of vulnerability (e.g., CWE-79 for XSS, CWE-89 for SQLi) with examples, mitigations, and detection methods.

How CWE Is Used in Cybersecurity

Security engineers reference CWE identifiers when classifying vulnerability findings and writing remediation guidance. SAST tools map their findings to CWE entries so developers understand the underlying weakness type. GRC analysts use CWE data in risk assessments to identify which weakness categories affect their organization most frequently.

Read the full glossary entry: Common Weakness Enumeration in Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity Roles That Work with CWE

Related Cybersecurity Acronyms

Frequently asked questions

What does CWE stand for?

CWE stands for Common Weakness Enumeration. Common Weakness Enumeration is a community-developed catalog of software and hardware weakness types. Each CWE entry describes a category of vulnerability (e.g., CWE-79 for XSS, CWE-89 for SQLi) with examples, mitigations, and detection methods.

What is CWE used for in cybersecurity?

Security engineers reference CWE identifiers when classifying vulnerability findings and writing remediation guidance. SAST tools map their findings to CWE entries so developers understand the underlying weakness type. GRC analysts use CWE data in risk assessments to identify which weakness categories affect their organization most frequently.

Sources

  1. MITRE CWE
Last verified: April 2026?Report an inaccuracy