CWE Board members, We are thrilled to announce that the “2025 CWE™ Most Important Hardware Weaknesses<https://cwe.mitre.org/topHW/index.html>” is now available on the CWE website, delivering a major update to the original 2021 release. For the first time, the refreshed MIHW combines comprehensive weakness data with expert opinion from across the hardware security community, equipping organizations with actionable insights to tackle today’s most critical hardware risks.
Goals The 2025 MIHW aims to drive awareness of critical hardware weaknesses and provide the cybersecurity community with practical guidance to prevent security issues at the source. By combining advanced data analysis with expert consensus, the list helps organizations prioritize mitigations, strengthen design practices, and make informed decisions throughout the hardware lifecycle. Suggested Use Cases The 2025 MIHW serves as a practical resource for a wide range of stakeholders: * Security Architects and Designers can use the list to prioritize and address key weaknesses * Design Teams benefit by building review checklists around top weaknesses * Security Researchers can focus their investigation and mitigation efforts * Test Engineers are able to target critical weaknesses in their testing * EDA Tool Vendors can enhance tool support for industry-prioritized issues * Educators can align course material with major hardware weaknesses A Community Effort The 2025 MIHW is the result of broad collaboration within the hardware security community. We extend our deepest gratitude to the 2025 MIHW Working Group whose dedication and hard work made the weakness data collection possible. We also thank the many respondents to the MIHW polls for sharing their expert insights, and all Hardware CWE SIG members for their ongoing support and contributions. Learn More & Please Share the “2025 MIHW” on Social Media Visit the Most Important Hardware Weaknesses page on the CWE website to view the 2025 list, key insights, methodology, use cases, and more. We also ask that you please share the new release on your social media to ensure the widest reach of coverage across the community. Thank you! We are really excited about this release, and we look forward to you diving into the new content. On behalf of the CWE Team, thank you for your continued support of the CWE Program. Cheers, Alec -- Alec J. Summers MITRE CVE / CWE Project Lead Cyber Security Engineer, Principal Center for Securing the Homeland (CSH) –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– MITRE – Pioneering for a Better Future
