The Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board (ISPAB) which is a part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is urging the agency to enhance and expand support for its National Cyber Vulnerability Database (NVD) to better safeguard national security.

The board has raised concerns about the NVD’s current accuracy and reliability, noting that recent scaling-back of the program earlier this year has affected its effectiveness.

In a letter to NIST Director Laurie Locascio, ISPAB emphasized the need for NIST to bolster the database to maintain its role in identifying and addressing cybersecurity vulnerabilities critical to national security.

“The Board is concerned that the influx of product vulnerabilities is only likely to grow as a result of trends including the deployment of artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) to search out new vulnerabilities and the growing efforts of additional parties such as the People’s Republic of China to find, catalog, and exploit vulnerabilities,” the letter states.