# Vulnerability elements and how they work

Vulnerability elements provide a short description of the event that has matched and a reference to external vulnerability information (CVE/BID/MS/TA).

When a Situation element refers to a Vulnerability element, the vulnerability information is included in the log entries generated when the Situation matches traffic. You can also use the vulnerability IDs in the element search to find Situation and Vulnerability elements that refer to a particular vulnerability.

Vulnerability information is included in dynamic update packages, so Situations provided by Forcepoint are already linked to a Vulnerability when appropriate. You can associate Situations with an existing Vulnerability or add a custom Vulnerability element.