@@ -13,9 +13,9 @@ kernel.
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Hardware issues like Meltdown, Spectre, L1TF etc. must be treated
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differently because they usually affect all Operating Systems ("OS") and
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therefore need coordination across different OS vendors, distributions,
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- hardware vendors and other parties. For some of the issues, software
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- mitigations can depend on microcode or firmware updates, which need further
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- coordination.
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+ silicon vendors, hardware integrators, and other parties. For some of the
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+ issues, software mitigations can depend on microcode or firmware updates,
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+ which need further coordination.
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.. _Contact :
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@@ -32,8 +32,8 @@ Linux kernel security team (:ref:`Documentation/admin-guide/
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<securitybugs>`) instead.
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The team can be contacted by email at <
[email protected] >. This
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- is a private list of security officers who will help you to coordinate a
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- fix according to our documented process.
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+ is a private list of security officers who will help you coordinate a fix
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+ according to our documented process.
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The list is encrypted and email to the list can be sent by either PGP or
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S/MIME encrypted and must be signed with the reporter's PGP key or S/MIME
@@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ the following URLs:
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- PGP: https://www.kernel.org/static/files/hardware-security.asc
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- S/MIME: https://www.kernel.org/static/files/hardware-security.crt
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- While hardware security issues are often handled by the affected hardware
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+ While hardware security issues are often handled by the affected silicon
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vendor, we welcome contact from researchers or individuals who have
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identified a potential hardware flaw.
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@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ of Linux Foundation's IT operations personnel technically have the
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ability to access the embargoed information, but are obliged to
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confidentiality by their employment contract. Linux Foundation IT
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personnel are also responsible for operating and managing the rest of
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- kernel.org infrastructure.
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+ kernel.org's infrastructure.
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The Linux Foundation's current director of IT Project infrastructure is
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Konstantin Ryabitsev.
@@ -85,7 +85,7 @@ Memorandum of Understanding
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The Linux kernel community has a deep understanding of the requirement to
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keep hardware security issues under embargo for coordination between
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- different OS vendors, distributors, hardware vendors and other parties.
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+ different OS vendors, distributors, silicon vendors, and other parties.
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The Linux kernel community has successfully handled hardware security
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issues in the past and has the necessary mechanisms in place to allow
@@ -103,11 +103,11 @@ the issue in the best technical way.
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All involved developers pledge to adhere to the embargo rules and to keep
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the received information confidential. Violation of the pledge will lead to
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immediate exclusion from the current issue and removal from all related
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- mailing- lists. In addition, the hardware security team will also exclude
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+ mailing lists. In addition, the hardware security team will also exclude
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the offender from future issues. The impact of this consequence is a highly
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effective deterrent in our community. In case a violation happens the
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hardware security team will inform the involved parties immediately. If you
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- or anyone becomes aware of a potential violation, please report it
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+ or anyone else becomes aware of a potential violation, please report it
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immediately to the Hardware security officers.
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@@ -124,14 +124,16 @@ method for these types of issues.
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Start of Disclosure
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"""""""""""""""""""
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- Disclosure starts by contacting the Linux kernel hardware security team by
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- email. This initial contact should contain a description of the problem and
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- a list of any known affected hardware. If your organization builds or
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- distributes the affected hardware, we encourage you to also consider what
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- other hardware could be affected.
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+ Disclosure starts by emailing the Linux kernel hardware security team per
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+ the Contact section above. This initial contact should contain a
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+ description of the problem and a list of any known affected silicon. If
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+ your organization builds or distributes the affected hardware, we encourage
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+ you to also consider what other hardware could be affected. The disclosing
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+ party is responsible for contacting the affected silicon vendors in a
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+ timely manner.
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The hardware security team will provide an incident-specific encrypted
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- mailing- list which will be used for initial discussion with the reporter,
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+ mailing list which will be used for initial discussion with the reporter,
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further disclosure, and coordination of fixes.
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The hardware security team will provide the disclosing party a list of
@@ -158,8 +160,8 @@ This serves several purposes:
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- The disclosed entities can be contacted to name experts who should
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participate in the mitigation development.
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- - If an expert which is required to handle an issue is employed by an
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- listed entity or member of an listed entity, then the response teams can
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+ - If an expert who is required to handle an issue is employed by a listed
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+ entity or member of an listed entity, then the response teams can
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request the disclosure of that expert from that entity. This ensures
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that the expert is also part of the entity's response team.
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@@ -169,8 +171,8 @@ Disclosure
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The disclosing party provides detailed information to the initial response
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team via the specific encrypted mailing-list.
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- From our experience the technical documentation of these issues is usually
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- a sufficient starting point and further technical clarification is best
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+ From our experience, the technical documentation of these issues is usually
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+ a sufficient starting point, and further technical clarification is best
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done via email.
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Mitigation development
@@ -179,57 +181,93 @@ Mitigation development
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The initial response team sets up an encrypted mailing-list or repurposes
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an existing one if appropriate.
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- Using a mailing- list is close to the normal Linux development process and
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- has been successfully used in developing mitigations for various hardware
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+ Using a mailing list is close to the normal Linux development process and
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+ has been successfully used to develop mitigations for various hardware
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security issues in the past.
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- The mailing- list operates in the same way as normal Linux development.
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- Patches are posted, discussed and reviewed and if agreed on applied to a
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- non-public git repository which is only accessible to the participating
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+ The mailing list operates in the same way as normal Linux development.
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+ Patches are posted, discussed, and reviewed and if agreed upon, applied to
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+ a non-public git repository which is only accessible to the participating
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developers via a secure connection. The repository contains the main
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development branch against the mainline kernel and backport branches for
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stable kernel versions as necessary.
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The initial response team will identify further experts from the Linux
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- kernel developer community as needed. Bringing in experts can happen at any
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- time of the development process and needs to be handled in a timely manner.
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+ kernel developer community as needed. Any involved party can suggest
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+ further experts to be included, each of which will be subject to the same
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+ requirements outlined above.
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- If an expert is employed by or member of an entity on the disclosure list
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+ Bringing in experts can happen at any time in the development process and
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+ needs to be handled in a timely manner.
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+
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+ If an expert is employed by or a member of an entity on the disclosure list
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provided by the disclosing party, then participation will be requested from
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the relevant entity.
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- If not, then the disclosing party will be informed about the experts
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+ If not, then the disclosing party will be informed about the experts'
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participation. The experts are covered by the Memorandum of Understanding
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- and the disclosing party is requested to acknowledge the participation. In
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- case that the disclosing party has a compelling reason to object, then this
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- objection has to be raised within five work days and resolved with the
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- incident team immediately. If the disclosing party does not react within
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- five work days this is taken as silent acknowledgement .
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+ and the disclosing party is requested to acknowledge their participation.
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+ In the case where the disclosing party has a compelling reason to object,
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+ any objection must to be raised within five working days and resolved with
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+ the incident team immediately. If the disclosing party does not react
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+ within five working days this is taken as silent acknowledgment .
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- After acknowledgement or resolution of an objection the expert is disclosed
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- by the incident team and brought into the development process.
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+ After the incident team acknowledges or resolves an objection, the expert
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+ is disclosed and brought into the development process.
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List participants may not communicate about the issue outside of the
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private mailing list. List participants may not use any shared resources
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(e.g. employer build farms, CI systems, etc) when working on patches.
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+ Early access
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+ """"""""""""
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+
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+ The patches discussed and developed on the list can neither be distributed
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+ to any individual who is not a member of the response team nor to any other
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+ organization.
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+
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+ To allow the affected silicon vendors to work with their internal teams and
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+ industry partners on testing, validation, and logistics, the following
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+ exception is provided:
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+
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+ Designated representatives of the affected silicon vendors are
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+ allowed to hand over the patches at any time to the silicon
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+ vendor’s response team. The representative must notify the kernel
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+ response team about the handover. The affected silicon vendor must
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+ have and maintain their own documented security process for any
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+ patches shared with their response team that is consistent with
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+ this policy.
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+
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+ The silicon vendor’s response team can distribute these patches to
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+ their industry partners and to their internal teams under the
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+ silicon vendor’s documented security process. Feedback from the
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+ industry partners goes back to the silicon vendor and is
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+ communicated by the silicon vendor to the kernel response team.
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+
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+ The handover to the silicon vendor’s response team removes any
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+ responsibility or liability from the kernel response team regarding
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+ premature disclosure, which happens due to the involvement of the
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+ silicon vendor’s internal teams or industry partners. The silicon
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+ vendor guarantees this release of liability by agreeing to this
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+ process.
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Coordinated release
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"""""""""""""""""""
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- The involved parties will negotiate the date and time where the embargo
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- ends. At that point the prepared mitigations are integrated into the
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- relevant kernel trees and published. There is no pre-notification process:
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- fixes are published in public and available to everyone at the same time.
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+ The involved parties will negotiate the date and time when the embargo
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+ ends. At that point, the prepared mitigations are published into the
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+ relevant kernel trees. There is no pre-notification process: the
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+ mitigations are published in public and available to everyone at the same
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+ time.
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While we understand that hardware security issues need coordinated embargo
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- time, the embargo time should be constrained to the minimum time which is
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- required for all involved parties to develop, test and prepare the
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+ time, the embargo time should be constrained to the minimum time that is
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+ required for all involved parties to develop, test, and prepare their
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mitigations. Extending embargo time artificially to meet conference talk
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- dates or other non-technical reasons is creating more work and burden for
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- the involved developers and response teams as the patches need to be kept
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- up to date in order to follow the ongoing upstream kernel development,
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- which might create conflicting changes.
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+ dates or other non-technical reasons creates more work and burden for the
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+ involved developers and response teams as the patches need to be kept up to
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+ date in order to follow the ongoing upstream kernel development, which
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+ might create conflicting changes.
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CVE assignment
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""""""""""""""
@@ -275,34 +313,35 @@ an involved disclosed party. The current ambassadors list:
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If you want your organization to be added to the ambassadors list, please
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contact the hardware security team. The nominated ambassador has to
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- understand and support our process fully and is ideally well connected in
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+ understand and support our process fully and is ideally well- connected in
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the Linux kernel community.
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Encrypted mailing-lists
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-----------------------
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- We use encrypted mailing- lists for communication. The operating principle
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+ We use encrypted mailing lists for communication. The operating principle
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of these lists is that email sent to the list is encrypted either with the
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- list's PGP key or with the list's S/MIME certificate. The mailing- list
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+ list's PGP key or with the list's S/MIME certificate. The mailing list
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software decrypts the email and re-encrypts it individually for each
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subscriber with the subscriber's PGP key or S/MIME certificate. Details
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- about the mailing- list software and the setup which is used to ensure the
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+ about the mailing list software and the setup that is used to ensure the
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security of the lists and protection of the data can be found here:
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https://korg.wiki.kernel.org/userdoc/remail.
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List keys
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^^^^^^^^^
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- For initial contact see :ref: `Contact `. For incident specific mailing-lists
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- the key and S/MIME certificate are conveyed to the subscribers by email
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- sent from the specific list.
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+ For initial contact see the :ref: `Contact ` section above . For incident
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+ specific mailing lists, the key and S/MIME certificate are conveyed to the
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+ subscribers by email sent from the specific list.
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- Subscription to incident specific lists
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+ Subscription to incident- specific lists
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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- Subscription is handled by the response teams. Disclosed parties who want
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- to participate in the communication send a list of potential subscribers to
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- the response team so the response team can validate subscription requests.
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+ Subscription to incident-specific lists is handled by the response teams.
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+ Disclosed parties who want to participate in the communication send a list
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+ of potential experts to the response team so the response team can validate
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+ subscription requests.
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Each subscriber needs to send a subscription request to the response team
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by email. The email must be signed with the subscriber's PGP key or S/MIME
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