In the vast and sometimes confusing world of cybersecurity, you’ll often run into security advisories labeled with “CVE” — short for Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures — and a unique number for each issue. Each CVE is supposed to be a record of a specific security vulnerability. But what happens if a CVE, like CVE-2024-26972, is rejected or withdrawn? Why does this happen, and what does it really mean?

In this article, we’re going to give you the full story about CVE-2024-26972, so you can better understand how the CVE system works, what a rejected CVE means, and why this matters for anyone in IT, security, or just surf the net daily.

What Was CVE-2024-26972, and Why Is It Now Rejected?

If you land on the official CVE page for CVE-2024-26972, you’ll see a simple, clear message:

> REJECT
>
> Reason: This CVE ID has been rejected or withdrawn by its CVE Numbering Authority. Additional information may be found at https://cve.mitre.org.

This means that someone thought they found a bug or vulnerability, reported it to the right people, and got a CVE assigned. But after more review, the organization responsible — known as the CVE Numbering Authority (CNA) — decided it wasn’t actually a real security issue, it was a duplicate, or didn’t fit the criteria for a CVE.

There are a few common reasons a CVE might end up “REJECTED”

- Mistaken Vulnerability: The reporter misunderstood the behavior and thought it was a security bug, but it wasn’t.
- Not a Unique Issue: Sometimes the same issue gets reported twice; one ID gets rejected so there isn’t confusion.
- Doesn’t Meet Criteria: Sometimes, people ask for a CVE for things that aren’t true vulnerabilities — like crashing from a bad config by design.

Example Code Snippet: Misunderstood "Vulnerability"

Let’s say you found that a web application logs user input without sanitization, and you think it might be vulnerable to code injection. You submit a report and a CVE gets assigned, but then someone checks and realizes the input is never actually executed — it’s just text in a log file, not a real risk.

def log_user_input(input_text):
    with open('logs.txt', 'a') as logfile:
        logfile.write(f"User input: {input_text}\n")  # Looks risky, but no code execution here!

In this simple Python snippet, it seems like there might be a risk, but unless another process uses that log file unsafely, this isn’t an exploitable bug. That’s the kind of issue that might get a CVE at first but later be rejected.

What Are the Security Risks of Rejected CVEs?

Short answer: Rejected CVEs *do not* represent an actual confirmed vulnerability. This is why the CVE site and databases keep the record but note the rejection — so nobody gets confused and wastes time patching or investigating a non-issue.

If you see a REJECT badge, you can safely ignore it for real-world security planning.

Always refer to official sources

- CVE Details
- MITRE CVE List
- NVD (National Vulnerability Database)

For CVE-2024-26972, every major database will say “REJECTED” or “WITHDRAWN”.

Final Thoughts

Many people think each CVE means they must scramble to patch things — but as we see with CVE-2024-26972, not every CVE is a threat. The system actually works hard to make sure only *real* problems get attention.

Next time you hear about a new high-number CVE — check if it’s rejected before worrying!

References

- CVE-2024-26972 on CVE.ORG
- CVE Numbering Authority Info
- MITRE What is a CVE?
- NVD CVE Search

Timeline

Published on: 05/01/2024 06:15:13 UTC
Last modified on: 12/19/2024 12:15:06 UTC