CVE Triage

Turn version/banner evidence from recon into a prioritized, exploitability-aware list of CVEs worth verifying. Use this after fingerprinting a service, when a banner or Server: header reveals a product and version, or whenever the target exposes software with a known version.

The cve_lookup tool

VulnClaw ships a read-only cve_lookup tool backed by NVD:

• Keyword search, cve_lookup(query="Apache httpd 2.4.49", limit=5) returns the top CVEs sorted by CVSS, highest first.
• CVE-ID detail, cve_lookup(query="CVE-2021-44228") returns the full record plus best-effort exploit / PoC repositories discovered on GitHub.

It performs no egress to the target and is safe during recon. Without an NVD_API_KEY it still works (lower rate limit); set one for heavier use.

Workflow

1. Extract product + version from recon, service banners, Server headers, JS bundles, login footers, package manifests. A precise version string (OpenSSH 8.2p1, nginx 1.18.0) yields far better matches than a bare name.
2. Query cve_lookup with "<product> <version>". Pull the detail record for any high/critical hit by re-querying its CVE-ID.
3. Score & prioritize, see references/cve-triage-workflow.md. Rank by CVSS, then by exploit availability, then by exposure (is the vulnerable surface actually reachable on this target?).
4. Confirm version applicability, match the target's version against the CVE's affected cpe range before claiming it. Banner ≠ proof of vulnerability.
5. Record findings with the CVE-ID, CVSS, and the evidence that maps this target to it. Mark unconfirmed version-only matches as needs-manual-review, not verified.

Pitfalls