|
| 1 | +Embargoed hardware issues |
| 2 | +========================= |
| 3 | + |
| 4 | +Scope |
| 5 | +----- |
| 6 | + |
| 7 | +Hardware issues which result in security problems are a different category |
| 8 | +of security bugs than pure software bugs which only affect the Linux |
| 9 | +kernel. |
| 10 | + |
| 11 | +Hardware issues like Meltdown, Spectre, L1TF etc. must be treated |
| 12 | +differently because they usually affect all Operating Systems ("OS") and |
| 13 | +therefore need coordination across different OS vendors, distributions, |
| 14 | +hardware vendors and other parties. For some of the issues, software |
| 15 | +mitigations can depend on microcode or firmware updates, which need further |
| 16 | +coordination. |
| 17 | + |
| 18 | +.. _Contact: |
| 19 | + |
| 20 | +Contact |
| 21 | +------- |
| 22 | + |
| 23 | +The Linux kernel hardware security team is separate from the regular Linux |
| 24 | +kernel security team. |
| 25 | + |
| 26 | +The team only handles the coordination of embargoed hardware security |
| 27 | +issues. Reports of pure software security bugs in the Linux kernel are not |
| 28 | +handled by this team and the reporter will be guided to contact the regular |
| 29 | +Linux kernel security team (:ref:`Documentation/admin-guide/ |
| 30 | +<securitybugs>`) instead. |
| 31 | + |
| 32 | +The team can be contacted by email at < [email protected]>. This |
| 33 | +is a private list of security officers who will help you to coordinate an |
| 34 | +issue according to our documented process. |
| 35 | + |
| 36 | +The list is encrypted and email to the list can be sent by either PGP or |
| 37 | +S/MIME encrypted and must be signed with the reporter's PGP key or S/MIME |
| 38 | +certificate. The list's PGP key and S/MIME certificate are available from |
| 39 | +https://www.kernel.org/.... |
| 40 | + |
| 41 | +While hardware security issues are often handled by the affected hardware |
| 42 | +vendor, we welcome contact from researchers or individuals who have |
| 43 | +identified a potential hardware flaw. |
| 44 | + |
| 45 | +Hardware security officers |
| 46 | +^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| 47 | + |
| 48 | +The current team of hardware security officers: |
| 49 | + |
| 50 | + - Linus Torvalds (Linux Foundation Fellow) |
| 51 | + - Greg Kroah-Hartman (Linux Foundation Fellow) |
| 52 | + - Thomas Gleixner (Linux Foundation Fellow) |
| 53 | + |
| 54 | +Operation of mailing-lists |
| 55 | +^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| 56 | + |
| 57 | +The encrypted mailing-lists which are used in our process are hosted on |
| 58 | +Linux Foundation's IT infrastructure. By providing this service Linux |
| 59 | +Foundation's director of IT Infrastructure security technically has the |
| 60 | +ability to access the embargoed information, but is obliged to |
| 61 | +confidentiality by his employment contract. Linux Foundation's director of |
| 62 | +IT Infrastructure security is also responsible for the kernel.org |
| 63 | +infrastructure. |
| 64 | + |
| 65 | +The Linux Foundation's current director of IT Infrastructure security is |
| 66 | +Konstantin Ryabitsev. |
| 67 | + |
| 68 | + |
| 69 | +Non-disclosure agreements |
| 70 | +------------------------- |
| 71 | + |
| 72 | +The Linux kernel hardware security team is not a formal body and therefore |
| 73 | +unable to enter into any non-disclosure agreements. The kernel community |
| 74 | +is aware of the sensitive nature of such issues and offers a Memorandum of |
| 75 | +Understanding instead. |
| 76 | + |
| 77 | + |
| 78 | +Memorandum of Understanding |
| 79 | +--------------------------- |
| 80 | + |
| 81 | +The Linux kernel community has a deep understanding of the requirement to |
| 82 | +keep hardware security issues under embargo for coordination between |
| 83 | +different OS vendors, distributors, hardware vendors and other parties. |
| 84 | + |
| 85 | +The Linux kernel community has successfully handled hardware security |
| 86 | +issues in the past and has the necessary mechanisms in place to allow |
| 87 | +community compliant development under embargo restrictions. |
| 88 | + |
| 89 | +The Linux kernel community has a dedicated hardware security team for |
| 90 | +initial contact, which oversees the process of handling such issues under |
| 91 | +embargo rules. |
| 92 | + |
| 93 | +The hardware security team identifies the developers (domain experts) who |
| 94 | +will form the initial response team for a particular issue. The initial |
| 95 | +response team can bring in further developers (domain experts) to address |
| 96 | +the issue in the best technical way. |
| 97 | + |
| 98 | +All involved developers pledge to adhere to the embargo rules and to keep |
| 99 | +the received information confidential. Violation of the pledge will lead to |
| 100 | +immediate exclusion from the current issue and removal from all related |
| 101 | +mailing-lists. In addition, the hardware security team will also exclude |
| 102 | +the offender from future issues. The impact of this consequence is a highly |
| 103 | +effective deterrent in our community. In case a violation happens the |
| 104 | +hardware security team will inform the involved parties immediately. If you |
| 105 | +or anyone becomes aware of a potential violation, please report it |
| 106 | +immediately to the Hardware security officers. |
| 107 | + |
| 108 | + |
| 109 | +Process |
| 110 | +^^^^^^^ |
| 111 | + |
| 112 | +Due to the globally distributed nature of Linux kernel development, |
| 113 | +face-to-face meetings are almost impossible to address hardware security |
| 114 | +issues. Phone conferences are hard to coordinate due to time zones and |
| 115 | +other factors and should be only used when absolutely necessary. Encrypted |
| 116 | +email has been proven to be the most effective and secure communication |
| 117 | +method for these types of issues. |
| 118 | + |
| 119 | +Start of Disclosure |
| 120 | +""""""""""""""""""" |
| 121 | + |
| 122 | +Disclosure starts by contacting the Linux kernel hardware security team by |
| 123 | +email. This initial contact should contain a description of the problem and |
| 124 | +a list of any known affected hardware. If your organization builds or |
| 125 | +distributes the affected hardware, we encourage you to also consider what |
| 126 | +other hardware could be affected. |
| 127 | + |
| 128 | +The hardware security team will provide an incident-specific encrypted |
| 129 | +mailing-list which will be used for initial discussion with the reporter, |
| 130 | +further disclosure and coordination. |
| 131 | + |
| 132 | +The hardware security team will provide the disclosing party a list of |
| 133 | +developers (domain experts) who should be informed initially about the |
| 134 | +issue after confirming with the developers that they will adhere to this |
| 135 | +Memorandum of Understanding and the documented process. These developers |
| 136 | +form the initial response team and will be responsible for handling the |
| 137 | +issue after initial contact. The hardware security team is supporting the |
| 138 | +response team, but is not necessarily involved in the mitigation |
| 139 | +development process. |
| 140 | + |
| 141 | +While individual developers might be covered by a non-disclosure agreement |
| 142 | +via their employer, they cannot enter individual non-disclosure agreements |
| 143 | +in their role as Linux kernel developers. They will, however, agree to |
| 144 | +adhere to this documented process and the Memorandum of Understanding. |
| 145 | + |
| 146 | + |
| 147 | +Disclosure |
| 148 | +"""""""""" |
| 149 | + |
| 150 | +The disclosing party provides detailed information to the initial response |
| 151 | +team via the specific encrypted mailing-list. |
| 152 | + |
| 153 | +From our experience the technical documentation of these issues is usually |
| 154 | +a sufficient starting point and further technical clarification is best |
| 155 | +done via email. |
| 156 | + |
| 157 | +Mitigation development |
| 158 | +"""""""""""""""""""""" |
| 159 | + |
| 160 | +The initial response team sets up an encrypted mailing-list or repurposes |
| 161 | +an existing one if appropriate. The disclosing party should provide a list |
| 162 | +of contacts for all other parties who have already been, or should be |
| 163 | +informed about the issue. The response team contacts these parties so they |
| 164 | +can name experts who should be subscribed to the mailing-list. |
| 165 | + |
| 166 | +Using a mailing-list is close to the normal Linux development process and |
| 167 | +has been successfully used in developing mitigations for various hardware |
| 168 | +security issues in the past. |
| 169 | + |
| 170 | +The mailing-list operates in the same way as normal Linux development. |
| 171 | +Patches are posted, discussed and reviewed and if agreed on applied to a |
| 172 | +non-public git repository which is only accessible to the participating |
| 173 | +developers via a secure connection. The repository contains the main |
| 174 | +development branch against the mainline kernel and backport branches for |
| 175 | +stable kernel versions as necessary. |
| 176 | + |
| 177 | +The initial response team will identify further experts from the Linux |
| 178 | +kernel developer community as needed and inform the disclosing party about |
| 179 | +their participation. Bringing in experts can happen at any time of the |
| 180 | +development process and often needs to be handled in a timely manner. |
| 181 | + |
| 182 | +Coordinated release |
| 183 | +""""""""""""""""""" |
| 184 | + |
| 185 | +The involved parties will negotiate the date and time where the embargo |
| 186 | +ends. At that point the prepared mitigations are integrated into the |
| 187 | +relevant kernel trees and published. |
| 188 | + |
| 189 | +While we understand that hardware security issues need coordinated embargo |
| 190 | +time, the embargo time should be constrained to the minimum time which is |
| 191 | +required for all involved parties to develop, test and prepare the |
| 192 | +mitigations. Extending embargo time artificially to meet conference talk |
| 193 | +dates or other non-technical reasons is creating more work and burden for |
| 194 | +the involved developers and response teams as the patches need to be kept |
| 195 | +up to date in order to follow the ongoing upstream kernel development, |
| 196 | +which might create conflicting changes. |
| 197 | + |
| 198 | +CVE assignment |
| 199 | +"""""""""""""" |
| 200 | + |
| 201 | +Neither the hardware security team nor the initial response team assign |
| 202 | +CVEs, nor are CVEs required for the development process. If CVEs are |
| 203 | +provided by the disclosing party they can be used for documentation |
| 204 | +purposes. |
| 205 | + |
| 206 | +Process ambassadors |
| 207 | +------------------- |
| 208 | + |
| 209 | +For assistance with this process we have established ambassadors in various |
| 210 | +organizations, who can answer questions about or provide guidance on the |
| 211 | +reporting process and further handling. Ambassadors are not involved in the |
| 212 | +disclosure of a particular issue, unless requested by a response team or by |
| 213 | +an involved disclosed party. The current ambassadors list: |
| 214 | + |
| 215 | + ============= ======================================================== |
| 216 | + ARM |
| 217 | + AMD |
| 218 | + IBM |
| 219 | + Intel |
| 220 | + Qualcomm |
| 221 | + |
| 222 | + Microsoft |
| 223 | + VMware |
| 224 | + XEN |
| 225 | + |
| 226 | + Canonical Tyler Hicks < [email protected]> |
| 227 | + Debian Ben Hutchings < [email protected]> |
| 228 | + Oracle Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk < [email protected]> |
| 229 | + Red Hat Josh Poimboeuf < [email protected]> |
| 230 | + SUSE Jiri Kosina < [email protected]> |
| 231 | + |
| 232 | + Amazon |
| 233 | + Google |
| 234 | + ============== ======================================================== |
| 235 | + |
| 236 | +If you want your organization to be added to the ambassadors list, please |
| 237 | +contact the hardware security team. The nominated ambassador has to |
| 238 | +understand and support our process fully and is ideally well connected in |
| 239 | +the Linux kernel community. |
| 240 | + |
| 241 | +Encrypted mailing-lists |
| 242 | +----------------------- |
| 243 | + |
| 244 | +We use encrypted mailing-lists for communication. The operating principle |
| 245 | +of these lists is that email sent to the list is encrypted either with the |
| 246 | +list's PGP key or with the list's S/MIME certificate. The mailing-list |
| 247 | +software decrypts the email and re-encrypts it individually for each |
| 248 | +subscriber with the subscriber's PGP key or S/MIME certificate. Details |
| 249 | +about the mailing-list software and the setup which is used to ensure the |
| 250 | +security of the lists and protection of the data can be found here: |
| 251 | +https://www.kernel.org/.... |
| 252 | + |
| 253 | +List keys |
| 254 | +^^^^^^^^^ |
| 255 | + |
| 256 | +For initial contact see :ref:`Contact`. For incident specific mailing-lists |
| 257 | +the key and S/MIME certificate are conveyed to the subscribers by email |
| 258 | +sent from the specific list. |
| 259 | + |
| 260 | +Subscription to incident specific lists |
| 261 | +^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| 262 | + |
| 263 | +Subscription is handled by the response teams. Disclosed parties who want |
| 264 | +to participate in the communication send a list of potential subscribers to |
| 265 | +the response team so the response team can validate subscription requests. |
| 266 | + |
| 267 | +Each subscriber needs to send a subscription request to the response team |
| 268 | +by email. The email must be signed with the subscriber's PGP key or S/MIME |
| 269 | +certificate. If a PGP key is used, it must be available from a public key |
| 270 | +server and is ideally connected to the Linux kernel's PGP web of trust. See |
| 271 | +also: https://www.kernel.org/signature.html. |
| 272 | + |
| 273 | +The response team verifies that the subscriber request is valid and adds |
| 274 | +the subscriber to the list. After subscription the subscriber will receive |
| 275 | +email from the mailing-list which is signed either with the list's PGP key |
| 276 | +or the list's S/MIME certificate. The subscriber's email client can extract |
| 277 | +the PGP key or the S/MIME certificate from the signature so the subscriber |
| 278 | +can send encrypted email to the list. |
| 279 | + |
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