OWASP VXDF: The Standard for Verifiable Exploit Evidence

The Problem: Drowning in Vulnerability Noise

Security teams and Developers are being overwhelmed by a deluge of vulnerability alerts from various scanning tools (SAST, DAST, SCA). Many of these alerts are false positives or represent theoretical vulnerabilities with no practical exploit path in the given context. This “alert fatigue” leads to:

• Wasted Resources: Valuable time spent triaging and investigating non-critical issues.
• Delayed Remediation: Truly exploitable vulnerabilities get lost in the noise, increasing risk.
• Developer Frustration: Constant interruptions for issues that may not be real threats.
• Inconsistent Reporting: Different tools and researchers report vulnerabilities in disparate, often incompatible formats, making unified risk assessment difficult.

The Solution: OWASP VXDF - Validated Exploitable Data Flow

OWASP VXDF (Validated Exploitable Data Flow) Format is a community-driven, open standard designed to address these challenges. It provides a standardized, machine-readable JSON format for describing code vulnerability flows that have been confirmed as exploitable, complete with the trace and mandatory validation evidence.

VXDF focuses on exploitable truth, not just theoretical possibilities.

Key Goals of VXDF:

• Reduce Alert Fatigue: By focusing on validated exploitable findings, VXDF helps teams prioritize what truly matters.
• Standardize Exploit Evidence: Provides a common language for describing how a vulnerability is exploited, including the necessary context and proof.
• Enable Automation: Machine-readable format facilitates integration into security tools, CI/CD pipelines, and vulnerability management systems.
• Improve Collaboration: Offers a clear and unambiguous way for finders (security tools, researchers) to communicate exploitable vulnerabilities to fixers (developers, operations).
• Enhance Existing Standards: Complements standards like SARIF and SPDX by adding a layer of validated exploitability information.

How VXDF Works

A VXDF document details a specific exploitable path within an application or component. It typically includes:

• Vulnerability Identification: Clear identification of the weakness (e.g., CWE).
• Affected Component: Precise information about the software, library, or code segment.
• Exploitation Path (Data Flow): A step-by-step description of how an attacker can trigger the vulnerability, from an entry point (source) to an impact point (sink).
• Validation Evidence: Concrete proof that the vulnerability is exploitable. This could be a working Proof-of-Concept (PoC) script, HTTP request/response pairs, or other verifiable data.
• Severity and Impact: Contextualized assessment of the vulnerability’s impact.

Who Benefits from VXDF?

• Security Teams: Prioritize remediation efforts effectively, focusing on confirmed risks.
• Developers: Receive clear, actionable reports with evidence, reducing time spent on false positives.
• Security Tool Vendors: Provide higher-fidelity results and integrate more seamlessly into security workflows.
• Bug Bounty Hunters & Researchers: Submit findings with verifiable proof, leading to faster validation and rewards.
• Organizations: Improve their overall security posture by addressing real threats more efficiently.

Get Involved!

OWASP VXDF is an open project, and we welcome contributions from the community!

• Explore the Specification: VXDF Specification
• Contribute to the Project: Visit our GitHub Repository to see how you can help with documentation, tooling, or use cases.
• Implement VXDF: If you are a tool vendor or have a security product, consider adopting VXDF for reporting exploitable vulnerabilities.