From Openscap

About

Purpose

The OpenSCAP Project was created to provide an open-source framework to the community which enables integration with the Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP) suite of standards and capabilities. It is the goal of OpenSCAP to provide a simple, easy to use set of interfaces to serve as the framework for community use of SCAP

What is SCAP

SCAP is a line of standards managed by NIST with the goal of providing a standard language for the expression of Computer Network Defense related information. More information about SCAP can be found at nvd.nist.gov/scap.cfm.

So What?

The SCAP suite contains multiple complex data exchange formats that are to be used to transmit important vulnerability, configuration, and other security data. Historically, there have been few tools that provide a way to query this data in the needed format. This lack of tools makes the barrier to entry very high and discourages adoption of these protocols by the community.

Getting There

A group of engineers has embarked on the mission to create a framework of libraries to improve the accessibility of SCAP and enhance the usability of the information it represents. Tools for parsing SCAP documents and querying content must be created to achieve this. This requires common set of interfaces to be defined and implemented to meet this need. It is the intent of this project to provide these interfaces and functional examples that would allow others in the open-source and vendor communities to make use of SCAP while minimizing the effort needed to gain value from it.

Scope

• The intended scope of this project is to implement working interface wrappers for parsing and querying SCAP content including:
  • Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE)
  • Common Configuration Enumeration (CCE)
  • Common Platform Enumeration (CPE)
  • Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS)
  • Extensible Configuration Checklist Description Format (XCCDF)
  • Open Vulnerability and Assessment Language (OVAL)

• It is not the intention of the project to produce a suite SCAP compliant security tools. The creation of such tools is not in scope for OpenSCAP.

Conclusion

OpenSCAP seeks to provide simplified access to SCAP content to enable the community to make better use of the capabilities locked within. It is an ambitious project with lofty goals, but the contributors believe that ultimately a successful implementation will improve adoption of SCAP. In turn, we believe that this adoption will provide tangible benefits to those who seek to use SCAP, develop products to integrate SCAP, and to the overall security posture of the community.