1curl security process 2===================== 3 4This document describes how security vulnerabilities should be handled in the 5curl project. 6 7Publishing Information 8---------------------- 9 10All known and public curl or libcurl related vulnerabilities are listed on 11[the curl website security page](https://curl.se/docs/security.html). 12 13Security vulnerabilities **should not** be entered in the project's public bug 14tracker. 15 16Vulnerability Handling 17---------------------- 18 19The typical process for handling a new security vulnerability is as follows. 20 21No information should be made public about a vulnerability until it is 22formally announced at the end of this process. That means, for example that a 23bug tracker entry must NOT be created to track the issue since that will make 24the issue public and it should not be discussed on any of the project's public 25mailing lists. Also messages associated with any commits should not make any 26reference to the security nature of the commit if done prior to the public 27announcement. 28 29- The person discovering the issue, the reporter, reports the vulnerability on 30 [https://hackerone.com/curl](https://hackerone.com/curl). Issues filed there 31 reach a handful of selected and trusted people. 32 33- Messages that do not relate to the reporting or managing of an undisclosed 34 security vulnerability in curl or libcurl are ignored and no further action 35 is required. 36 37- A person in the security team responds to the original report to acknowledge 38 that a human has seen the report. 39 40- The security team investigates the report and either rejects it or accepts 41 it. 42 43- If the report is rejected, the team writes to the reporter to explain why. 44 45- If the report is accepted, the team writes to the reporter to let him/her 46 know it is accepted and that they are working on a fix. 47 48- The security team discusses the problem, works out a fix, considers the 49 impact of the problem and suggests a release schedule. This discussion 50 should involve the reporter as much as possible. 51 52- The release of the information should be "as soon as possible" and is most 53 often synchronized with an upcoming release that contains the fix. If the 54 reporter, or anyone else involved, thinks the next planned release is too 55 far away, then a separate earlier release should be considered. 56 57- Write a security advisory draft about the problem that explains what the 58 problem is, its impact, which versions it affects, solutions or workarounds, 59 when the release is out and make sure to credit all contributors properly. 60 Figure out the CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration) number for the flaw. 61 62- Request a CVE number from 63 [HackerOne](https://docs.hackerone.com/programs/cve-requests.html) 64 65- Consider informing 66 [distros@openwall](https://oss-security.openwall.org/wiki/mailing-lists/distros) 67 to prepare them about the upcoming public security vulnerability 68 announcement - attach the advisory draft for information. Note that 69 'distros' won't accept an embargo longer than 14 days and they do not care 70 for Windows-specific flaws. 71 72- Update the "security advisory" with the CVE number. 73 74- The security team commits the fix in a private branch. The commit message 75 should ideally contain the CVE number. This fix is usually also distributed 76 to the 'distros' mailing list to allow them to use the fix prior to the 77 public announcement. 78 79- No more than 48 hours before the release, the private branch is merged into 80 the master branch and pushed. Once pushed, the information is accessible to 81 the public and the actual release should follow suit immediately afterwards. 82 The time between the push and the release is used for final tests and 83 reviews. 84 85- The project team creates a release that includes the fix. 86 87- The project team announces the release and the vulnerability to the world in 88 the same manner we always announce releases. It gets sent to the 89 curl-announce, curl-library and curl-users mailing lists. 90 91- The security web page on the website should get the new vulnerability 92 mentioned. 93 94curl-security (at haxx dot se) 95------------------------------ 96 97This is a private mailing list for discussions on and about curl security 98issues. 99 100Who is on this list? There are a couple of criteria you must meet, and then we 101might ask you to join the list or you can ask to join it. It really isn't very 102formal. We basically only require that you have a long-term presence in the 103curl project and you have shown an understanding for the project and its way 104of working. You must've been around for a good while and you should have no 105plans in vanishing in the near future. 106 107We do not make the list of participants public mostly because it tends to vary 108somewhat over time and a list somewhere will only risk getting outdated. 109 110Publishing Security Advisories 111------------------------------ 112 1131. Write up the security advisory, using markdown syntax. Use the same 114 subtitles as last time to maintain consistency. 115 1162. Name the advisory file after the allocated CVE id. 117 1183. Add a line on the top of the array in `curl-www/docs/vuln.pm'. 119 1204. Put the new advisory markdown file in the curl-www/docs/ directory. Add it 121 to the git repo. 122 1235. Run `make` in your local web checkout and verify that things look fine. 124 1256. On security advisory release day, push the changes on the curl-www 126 repository's remote master branch. 127 128Hackerone 129--------- 130 131Request the issue to be disclosed. If there are sensitive details present in 132the report and discussion, those should be redacted from the disclosure. The 133default policy is to disclose as much as possible as soon as the vulnerability 134has been published. 135 136Bug Bounty 137---------- 138 139See [BUG-BOUNTY](https://curl.se/docs/bugbounty.html) for details on the 140bug bounty program. 141