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Comment by db48x | Hacker News Reader

Fun, but it doesn’t deserve a CVE. CVEs are for vulnerabilities that are common across multiple products from multiple sources. Think of a vulnerability in a shared library that is used in most Linux distributions, or is statically linked into multiple programs. Copilot doesn’t meet that criteria.

Honestly, the worst thing about this story is that apparently the Copilot LLM is given the instructions to create audit log entries. That’s the worst design I could imagine! When they use an API to access a file or a url then the API should create the audit log. This is just engineering 101.

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Huh, there are CVEs for windows components all the time, random example: https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-20...

Including for end user applications, not libraries, another random example: https://msrc.microsoft.com/update-guide/vulnerability/CVE-20...

> CVEs are for vulnerabilities that are common across multiple products from multiple sources.

This is absolutely not true. I have no idea where you came up with this.

> Honestly, the worst thing about this story is that apparently the Copilot LLM is given the instructions to create audit log entries.

That's not at all what the article says.

> That’s the worst design I could imagine!

Ok, well, that's not how they designed it.

> This is just engineering 101.

Where is the class for reading 101?

>> CVEs are for vulnerabilities that are common across multiple products from multiple sources.

>This is absolutely not true. I have no idea where you came up with this.

Perhaps they asked Copilot?

CVEs aren’t just for common dependencies. The “Common” part of the name is about having standardized reporting that over time helps reveal common issues occurring across multiple CVEs. Individually they’re just a way to catalog known vulnerabilities and indicate their severity to anyone impacted, whether that’s a hundred people or billions. There are high severity CVEs for individual niche IoT thermostats and light strips with obscure weaknesses.

Technically, CVEs are meant to only affect one codebase, so a vulnerability in a shared library often means a separate CVE for each affected product. It’s only when there’s no way to use the library without being vulnerable that they’d generally make just one CVE covering all affected products. [1]

Even ignoring all that, people are incorporating Copilot into their development process, which makes it a common dependency.

[1]: https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/security/what-is-cve

More accurately, CVEs are for vulnerabilities that may be present on many systems. Then, the CVE number is a reference point that helps you when discussing the vulnerability, like asking whether it's present on a particular system, or what percentage of systems are patched. This vulnerability was only present on one system, so it doesn't need a CVE number. It could have a Microsoft-assigned bug number, but it doesn't need a CVE.

This may be a stated reason but it's questionable logic. There are of course many cases where people need to reference and discuss this vulnerability and its impact.

There are many cases where people need to reference and discuss the weather, but the weather doesn't need a CVE number. If you could hypothetically put it in a known vulnerability scanner then it should have a CVE. Otherwise no.

It's for communication.

"The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) Program’s primary purpose is to uniquely identify vulnerabilities and to associate specific versions of code bases (e.g., software and shared libraries) to those vulnerabilities. The use of CVEs ensures that two or more parties can confidently refer to a CVE identifier (ID) when discussing or sharing information about a unique vulnerability" (from https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln)

But this isn't a problem on one system, it's potentially a problem in any system with Copilot enabled. It's akin to a vulnerability in a software library (which often means a separate CVE for every affected product, not just one for the library). CVEs also limited to issues impacting multiple systems; even if a vulnerability only affects one product, ideally a CVE should get made. The 'common' aspect is the shared reporting standard. See my other comment on this thread for more on that, or Redhat's explanation here: https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/security/what-is-cve

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