1Embargoed hardware issues 2========================= 3 4Scope 5----- 6 7Hardware issues which result in security problems are a different category 8of security bugs than pure software bugs which only affect the Linux 9kernel. 10 11Hardware issues like Meltdown, Spectre, L1TF etc. must be treated 12differently because they usually affect all Operating Systems ("OS") and 13therefore need coordination across different OS vendors, distributions, 14hardware vendors and other parties. For some of the issues, software 15mitigations can depend on microcode or firmware updates, which need further 16coordination. 17 18.. _Contact: 19 20Contact 21------- 22 23The Linux kernel hardware security team is separate from the regular Linux 24kernel security team. 25 26The team only handles the coordination of embargoed hardware security 27issues. Reports of pure software security bugs in the Linux kernel are not 28handled by this team and the reporter will be guided to contact the regular 29Linux kernel security team (:ref:`Documentation/admin-guide/ 30<securitybugs>`) instead. 31 32The team can be contacted by email at <hardware-security@kernel.org>. This 33is a private list of security officers who will help you to coordinate an 34issue according to our documented process. 35 36The list is encrypted and email to the list can be sent by either PGP or 37S/MIME encrypted and must be signed with the reporter's PGP key or S/MIME 38certificate. The list's PGP key and S/MIME certificate are available from 39https://www.kernel.org/.... 40 41While hardware security issues are often handled by the affected hardware 42vendor, we welcome contact from researchers or individuals who have 43identified a potential hardware flaw. 44 45Hardware security officers 46^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 47 48The 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 54Operation of mailing-lists 55^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 56 57The encrypted mailing-lists which are used in our process are hosted on 58Linux Foundation's IT infrastructure. By providing this service Linux 59Foundation's director of IT Infrastructure security technically has the 60ability to access the embargoed information, but is obliged to 61confidentiality by his employment contract. Linux Foundation's director of 62IT Infrastructure security is also responsible for the kernel.org 63infrastructure. 64 65The Linux Foundation's current director of IT Infrastructure security is 66Konstantin Ryabitsev. 67 68 69Non-disclosure agreements 70------------------------- 71 72The Linux kernel hardware security team is not a formal body and therefore 73unable to enter into any non-disclosure agreements. The kernel community 74is aware of the sensitive nature of such issues and offers a Memorandum of 75Understanding instead. 76 77 78Memorandum of Understanding 79--------------------------- 80 81The Linux kernel community has a deep understanding of the requirement to 82keep hardware security issues under embargo for coordination between 83different OS vendors, distributors, hardware vendors and other parties. 84 85The Linux kernel community has successfully handled hardware security 86issues in the past and has the necessary mechanisms in place to allow 87community compliant development under embargo restrictions. 88 89The Linux kernel community has a dedicated hardware security team for 90initial contact, which oversees the process of handling such issues under 91embargo rules. 92 93The hardware security team identifies the developers (domain experts) who 94will form the initial response team for a particular issue. The initial 95response team can bring in further developers (domain experts) to address 96the issue in the best technical way. 97 98All involved developers pledge to adhere to the embargo rules and to keep 99the received information confidential. Violation of the pledge will lead to 100immediate exclusion from the current issue and removal from all related 101mailing-lists. In addition, the hardware security team will also exclude 102the offender from future issues. The impact of this consequence is a highly 103effective deterrent in our community. In case a violation happens the 104hardware security team will inform the involved parties immediately. If you 105or anyone becomes aware of a potential violation, please report it 106immediately to the Hardware security officers. 107 108 109Process 110^^^^^^^ 111 112Due to the globally distributed nature of Linux kernel development, 113face-to-face meetings are almost impossible to address hardware security 114issues. Phone conferences are hard to coordinate due to time zones and 115other factors and should be only used when absolutely necessary. Encrypted 116email has been proven to be the most effective and secure communication 117method for these types of issues. 118 119Start of Disclosure 120""""""""""""""""""" 121 122Disclosure starts by contacting the Linux kernel hardware security team by 123email. This initial contact should contain a description of the problem and 124a list of any known affected hardware. If your organization builds or 125distributes the affected hardware, we encourage you to also consider what 126other hardware could be affected. 127 128The hardware security team will provide an incident-specific encrypted 129mailing-list which will be used for initial discussion with the reporter, 130further disclosure and coordination. 131 132The hardware security team will provide the disclosing party a list of 133developers (domain experts) who should be informed initially about the 134issue after confirming with the developers that they will adhere to this 135Memorandum of Understanding and the documented process. These developers 136form the initial response team and will be responsible for handling the 137issue after initial contact. The hardware security team is supporting the 138response team, but is not necessarily involved in the mitigation 139development process. 140 141While individual developers might be covered by a non-disclosure agreement 142via their employer, they cannot enter individual non-disclosure agreements 143in their role as Linux kernel developers. They will, however, agree to 144adhere to this documented process and the Memorandum of Understanding. 145 146 147Disclosure 148"""""""""" 149 150The disclosing party provides detailed information to the initial response 151team via the specific encrypted mailing-list. 152 153From our experience the technical documentation of these issues is usually 154a sufficient starting point and further technical clarification is best 155done via email. 156 157Mitigation development 158"""""""""""""""""""""" 159 160The initial response team sets up an encrypted mailing-list or repurposes 161an existing one if appropriate. The disclosing party should provide a list 162of contacts for all other parties who have already been, or should be, 163informed about the issue. The response team contacts these parties so they 164can name experts who should be subscribed to the mailing-list. 165 166Using a mailing-list is close to the normal Linux development process and 167has been successfully used in developing mitigations for various hardware 168security issues in the past. 169 170The mailing-list operates in the same way as normal Linux development. 171Patches are posted, discussed and reviewed and if agreed on applied to a 172non-public git repository which is only accessible to the participating 173developers via a secure connection. The repository contains the main 174development branch against the mainline kernel and backport branches for 175stable kernel versions as necessary. 176 177The initial response team will identify further experts from the Linux 178kernel developer community as needed and inform the disclosing party about 179their participation. Bringing in experts can happen at any time of the 180development process and often needs to be handled in a timely manner. 181 182Coordinated release 183""""""""""""""""""" 184 185The involved parties will negotiate the date and time where the embargo 186ends. At that point the prepared mitigations are integrated into the 187relevant kernel trees and published. 188 189While we understand that hardware security issues need coordinated embargo 190time, the embargo time should be constrained to the minimum time which is 191required for all involved parties to develop, test and prepare the 192mitigations. Extending embargo time artificially to meet conference talk 193dates or other non-technical reasons is creating more work and burden for 194the involved developers and response teams as the patches need to be kept 195up to date in order to follow the ongoing upstream kernel development, 196which might create conflicting changes. 197 198CVE assignment 199"""""""""""""" 200 201Neither the hardware security team nor the initial response team assign 202CVEs, nor are CVEs required for the development process. If CVEs are 203provided by the disclosing party they can be used for documentation 204purposes. 205 206Process ambassadors 207------------------- 208 209For assistance with this process we have established ambassadors in various 210organizations, who can answer questions about or provide guidance on the 211reporting process and further handling. Ambassadors are not involved in the 212disclosure of a particular issue, unless requested by a response team or by 213an involved disclosed party. The current ambassadors list: 214 215 ============= ======================================================== 216 ARM 217 AMD 218 IBM 219 Intel 220 Qualcomm Trilok Soni <tsoni@codeaurora.org> 221 222 Microsoft Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org> 223 VMware 224 Xen Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@citrix.com> 225 226 Canonical Tyler Hicks <tyhicks@canonical.com> 227 Debian Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> 228 Oracle Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com> 229 Red Hat Josh Poimboeuf <jpoimboe@redhat.com> 230 SUSE Jiri Kosina <jkosina@suse.cz> 231 232 Amazon 233 Google Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org> 234 ============= ======================================================== 235 236If you want your organization to be added to the ambassadors list, please 237contact the hardware security team. The nominated ambassador has to 238understand and support our process fully and is ideally well connected in 239the Linux kernel community. 240 241Encrypted mailing-lists 242----------------------- 243 244We use encrypted mailing-lists for communication. The operating principle 245of these lists is that email sent to the list is encrypted either with the 246list's PGP key or with the list's S/MIME certificate. The mailing-list 247software decrypts the email and re-encrypts it individually for each 248subscriber with the subscriber's PGP key or S/MIME certificate. Details 249about the mailing-list software and the setup which is used to ensure the 250security of the lists and protection of the data can be found here: 251https://www.kernel.org/.... 252 253List keys 254^^^^^^^^^ 255 256For initial contact see :ref:`Contact`. For incident specific mailing-lists 257the key and S/MIME certificate are conveyed to the subscribers by email 258sent from the specific list. 259 260Subscription to incident specific lists 261^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 262 263Subscription is handled by the response teams. Disclosed parties who want 264to participate in the communication send a list of potential subscribers to 265the response team so the response team can validate subscription requests. 266 267Each subscriber needs to send a subscription request to the response team 268by email. The email must be signed with the subscriber's PGP key or S/MIME 269certificate. If a PGP key is used, it must be available from a public key 270server and is ideally connected to the Linux kernel's PGP web of trust. See 271also: https://www.kernel.org/signature.html. 272 273The response team verifies that the subscriber request is valid and adds 274the subscriber to the list. After subscription the subscriber will receive 275email from the mailing-list which is signed either with the list's PGP key 276or the list's S/MIME certificate. The subscriber's email client can extract 277the PGP key or the S/MIME certificate from the signature so the subscriber 278can send encrypted email to the list. 279 280