CISA Vulnerability Checker MCP Server

Overview

The CISA Vulnerability Checker MCP Server bridges the gap between AI assistants and the most authoritative source of known exploited vulnerabilities in the United States. By exposing CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog through the Model Control Protocol, developers can give Claude or other AI agents instant, real‑time insight into whether a CVE is actively exploited and how it should be prioritized in risk assessments.

What problem does it solve?

Security teams routinely sift through thousands of CVEs to determine which ones require immediate patching. Manual look‑ups are slow, error‑prone, and difficult to automate in conversational AI workflows. This MCP server eliminates that friction by turning the KEV catalog into a first‑class API service that any AI assistant can query on demand. Whether the assistant is drafting a security report, triaging alerts, or advising a developer about code changes, it can now ask “Is CVE‑2024‑1234 actively exploited?” and receive an authoritative answer instantly.

Core functionality and value

At its heart, the server offers a lightweight REST API that mirrors the KEV data set: health checks, status reports, single‑CVE queries, and a recent‑CVEs endpoint that filters by days or hours. The MCP wrapper translates these endpoints into the language understood by Claude, allowing the assistant to invoke them with natural‑language prompts. This tight integration means developers can embed vulnerability checks directly into their conversational scripts, automated triage pipelines, or continuous‑integration workflows without writing custom HTTP code.

Key benefits include:

• Real‑time verification – the server queries CISA’s live feed, ensuring no stale data is returned.
• Seamless AI integration – the MCP interface lets Claude call the service as if it were a native tool, preserving context and reducing latency.
• Comprehensive coverage – the entire KEV catalog is exposed, not just a subset of high‑severity CVEs.
• Developer-friendly CLI – for quick manual checks or scripting, the command‑line interface mirrors the API endpoints.

Use cases and scenarios

1. AI‑driven security advisory – a conversational agent can ask a user about a specific CVE and instantly provide the exploitation status, recommended mitigations, and patch timelines.
2. Automated alert triage – integration with SIEM or monitoring tools can trigger the MCP server to enrich alerts with KEV information before routing them to analysts.
3. Continuous‑integration checks – CI pipelines can query the server during build or test stages to flag dependencies that introduce actively exploited vulnerabilities.
4. Compliance reporting – auditors can generate reports that automatically reference the latest KEV data, ensuring accuracy and auditability.

Unique advantages

Unlike generic CVE lookup services, this MCP server is specifically tuned to CISA’s KEV data set, which focuses on vulnerabilities that have been proven to be exploited in the wild. The result is a higher signal‑to‑noise ratio for security operations, enabling teams to concentrate on the most pressing threats. Additionally, the server’s MCP compatibility means it can be plugged into any Claude deployment with a single configuration tweak, providing instant value without infrastructure overhead.

In summary, the CISA Vulnerability Checker MCP Server empowers AI assistants to perform authoritative, real‑time vulnerability assessments, streamlining security workflows and elevating the accuracy of automated threat intelligence.