This page explains what you're actually installing when adding an MCP server to your agent. Beyond just adding a tool, you inherit its code, dependencies, and behavior, including a potentially large and opaque dependency tree with existing vulnerabilities. The authors conducted large-scale analysis of MCP servers from public registries. Phase 1 involved collecting and inventorying over 25,000 distinct MCP implementations from two registries. Phase 2 analyzed repositories and dependency graphs to identify known vulnerability exposure, mapping dependencies to CVEs and tracking severity levels. Results are published as a free public API at mistaike.ai/cve-registry, currently covering over 6,000 servers with server-level dependency risk views unavailable in standard vulnerability databases.
