---
title: Vulnerabilities
description: A Vulnerability is a weakness or defect in a software or hardware component that attackers exploit. Vulnerabilities apply for STIX 2.x.
locale: en-US
canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/security-management/vulnerabilities.html
release: australia
topic_type: concept
last_updated: "2026-03-12"
reading_time_minutes: 3
breadcrumb: [IoC Repository, Threat Intelligence, Enterprise security case management applications, Security Operations]
---

# Vulnerabilities

A Vulnerability is a weakness or defect in a software or hardware component that attackers exploit. Vulnerabilities apply for STIX 2.x.

The weakness or defect is in the requirements, designs, or implementations of the code found in a software or hardware component. This weakness is directly exploited to negatively impact the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of that system.

CVE is a list of information security vulnerabilities and exposures that provides common names for publicly known problems \[CVE\].

For example, if a piece of malware exploits CVE-2015-12345, a Malware object could be linked to a Vulnerability object that references CVE-2015-12345.

-   **[Define vulnerabilities](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/security-management/define-vulnerabilities.md)**  
Define vulnerability as a weakness or defect in a software or hardware component that attackers exploit.

**Parent Topic:**[IoC Repository](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/australia/markdown/australia/security-management/ioc-repository.md)

**Related topics**  


[Attack modes and methods]()

[Indicators of compromise]()

[Observables]()

[Attack patterns]()

[Campaigns]()

[Course of actions]()

[Identities]()

[Infrastructure]()

[Intrusion set]()

[Locations]()

[Malware]()

[Malware analysis]()

[Observed data]()

[Threat actors]()

[Threat groupings]()

[Marking definitions]()

[Threat notes]()

[Threat opinions]()

[Threat reports]()

[Sightings]()

[Tools]()

[Relationships]()

[STIX Visualizer]()