Sbom

VEX (Vulnerability Exploitability eXchange) is a machine-readable assertion format that answers the question an SBOM alone cannot: given that a product contains a component affected by a known CVE, is that vulnerability actually exploitable in this specific product? An SBOM identifies components and versions; a CVE database maps those versions to known vulnerabilities; but the intersection of the two systematically overstates actual risk. A container image built on a minimal base may include a library with a known buffer overflow in a network-parsing function — but if that function is never called by anything in the image, or the affected code path requires a configuration flag that is hardcoded off, the CVE is present but not exploitable. Without VEX, every scanner that ingests the SBOM raises an alert; with VEX, the supplier asserts the non-exploitability with a machine-readable justification that automated tooling can consume to suppress the alert without human triage. VEX originated in the same NTIA multistakeholder process that produced the SBOM minimum elements framework, and was formalised by CISA in 2021–2022.