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Add a SECURITY.md
Move content from the Security Process[1] and Security Exceptions[2] wiki documents into the repository so that it is in a standard place for analysis tools to look for the glibc security policy. This is a more or less verbatim port of the wiki document with some restructuring for a more coherent layout since the two pages are now merged. There should be no change in messaging in this commit. Signed-off-by: Siddhesh Poyarekar <siddhesh@sourceware.org> Reviewed-by: Carlos O'Donell <carlos@redhat.com>
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# The GNU C Library Security Process
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This document describes the process followed by the GNU C Library maintainers
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to handle bugs that may have a security impact. This includes determining if a
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bug has a security impact, reporting such bugs to the community and handling
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such bugs all the way to resolution. This process may evolve over time, so if
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you're reading this from a release tarball, be sure to check the latest copy of
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the [SECURITY.md in the
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repository](https://sourceware.org/git/?p=glibc.git;a=blob;f=SECURITY.md),
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especially for instructions on reporting issues privately.
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## What is a security bug?
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Most security vulnerabilities in the GNU C Library materialize only after an
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application uses functionality in a specific way. Therefore, it is sometimes
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difficult to determine if a defect in the GNU C Library constitutes a
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vulnerability as such. The follow guidelines can help with a decision.
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* Buffer overflows should be treated as security bugs if it is conceivable that
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the data triggering them can come from an untrusted source.
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* Other bugs that cause memory corruption which is likely exploitable should be
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treated as security bugs.
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* Information disclosure can be security bugs, especially if exposure through
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applications can be determined.
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* Memory leaks and races are security bugs if they cause service breakage.
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* Stack overflow through unbounded alloca calls or variable-length arrays are
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security bugs if it is conceivable that the data triggering the overflow
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could come from an untrusted source.
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* Stack overflow through deep recursion and other crashes are security bugs if
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they cause service breakage.
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* Bugs that cripple the whole system (so that it doesn't even boot or does not
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run most applications) are not security bugs because they will not be
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exploitable in practice, due to general system instability.
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* Bugs that crash `nscd` are generally security bugs, except if they can only
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be triggered by a trusted data source (DNS is not trusted, but NIS and LDAP
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probably are).
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* The [Security Exceptions](#SecurityExceptions) section below describes
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subsystems for which determining the security status of bugs is especially
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complicated.
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* For consistency, if the bug has received a CVE name attributing it to the GNU
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C library, it should be flagged `security+`.
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* Duplicates of security bugs (flagged with `security+`) should be flagged
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`security-`, to avoid cluttering the reporting.
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In this context, _service breakage_ means client-side privilege escalation
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(code execution) or server-side denial of service or privilege escalation
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through actual, concrete, non-synthetic applications. Or put differently, if
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the GNU C Library causes a security bug in an application (and the application
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uses the library in a standard-conforming manner or according to the manual),
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the GNU C Library bug should be treated as security-relevant.
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### Security Exceptions
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It may be especially complicated to determine the security status of bugs in
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some subsystems in the GNU C Library. This subsection describes such
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subsystems and the special considerations applicable during security bug
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classification in them.
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#### Regular expression processing
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Regular expression processing comes in two parts, compilation (through regcomp)
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and execution (through regexec).
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Implementing regular expressions efficiently, in a standard-conforming way, and
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without denial-of-service vulnerabilities is very difficult and impossible for
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Basic Regular Expressions. Most implementation strategies have issues dealing
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with certain classes of patterns.
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Consequently, certain issues which can be triggered only with crafted patterns
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(either during compilation or execution) are treated as regular bugs and not
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security issues. Examples of such issues would include (but is not limited
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to):
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* Running out of memory through valid use of malloc
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* Quadratic or exponential behaviour resulting in slow execution time
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* Stack overflows due to recursion when processing patterns
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Crashes, infinite loops (and not merely exponential behavior), buffer overflows
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and overreads, memory leaks and other bugs resulting from the regex
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implementation relying on undefined behavior should be treated as security
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vulnerabilities.
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#### wordexp patterns
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`wordexp` inherently has exponential memory consumption in terms of the input
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size. This means that denial of service flaws from crafted patterns are not
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security issues (even if they lead to other issues, such as NULL pointer
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dereferences).
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#### Asynchronous I/O
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The GNU C Library tries to implement asynchronous I/O without kernel support,
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which means that several operations are not fully standard conforming. Several
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known races can cause crashes and resource leaks. Such bugs are only treated
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as security bugs if applications (as opposed to synthetic test cases) have
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security exposures due to these bugs.
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#### Asynchronous cancellation
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The implementation of asynchronous cancellation is not fully
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standard-conforming and has races and leaks. Again, such bugs are only treated
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as security bugs if applications (as opposed to synthetic test cases) have
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security exposures due to these bugs.
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#### Crafted binaries and ldd
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The `ldd` tool is not expected to be used with untrusted executables.
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#### Post-exploitation countermeasures
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Certain features have been added to the library only to make exploitation of
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security bugs (mainly for code execution) more difficult. Examples includes
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the stack smashing protector, function pointer obfuscation, vtable validation
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for stdio stream handles, and various heap consistency checks. Failure of such
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countermeasures to stop exploitation of a different vulnerability is not a
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security vulnerability in itself. By their nature, these countermeasures are
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based on heuristics and will never offer complete protection, so the original
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vulnerability needs to be fixed anyway.
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## Reporting private security bugs
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**IMPORTANT: All bugs reported in Bugzilla are public.**
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As a rule of thumb, security vulnerabilities which are exposed over the network
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or can be used for local privilege escalation (through existing applications,
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not synthetic test cases) should be reported privately. We expect that such
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critical security bugs are rare, and that most security bugs can be reported in
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Bugzilla, thus making them public immediately. If in doubt, you can file a
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private bug, as explained in the next paragraph.
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If you want to report a _private_ security bug that is not immediately
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public, please contact _one_ of our downstream distributions with security
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teams. The follow teams have volunteered to handle such bugs:
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* Debian: security@debian.org
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* Red Hat: secalert@redhat.com
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* SUSE: security@suse.de
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Please report the bug to _just one_ of these teams. It will be shared with
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other teams as necessary.
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The team you contacted will take care of details such as vulnerability rating
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and [CVE assignment](http://cve.mitre.org/about/). It is likely that the team
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will ask to file a public bug because the issue is sufficiently minor and does
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not warrant an embargo. An embargo is not a requirement for being credited
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with the discovery of a security vulnerability.
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## Reporting public security bugs
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We expect that critical security bugs are rare, and that most security bugs can
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be reported in Bugzilla, thus making them public immediately. When reporting
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public security bugs the reporter should provide rationale for their choice of
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public disclosure.
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## Triaging security bugs
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This section is aimed at developers, not reporters.
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Security-relevant bugs should be marked with `security+`, as per the [Bugzilla
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security flag
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documentation](https://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/Bugzilla%20Procedures#security),
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following the guidelines above. If you set the `security+` flag, you should
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make sure the following information is included in the bug (usually in a bug
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comment):
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* The first glibc version which includes the vulnerable code. If the
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vulnerability was introduced before glibc 2.4 (released in 2006), this
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information is not necessary.
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* The commit or commits (identified by hash) that fix this vulnerability in the
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master branch, and (for historic security bugs) the first release that
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includes this fix.
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* The summary should include the CVE names (if any), in parentheses at the end.
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* If there is a single CVE name assigned to this bug, it should be set as an
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alias.
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The following links are helpful for finding untriaged bugs:
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* [Unprocessed bugs](https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?f1=flagtypes.name&o1=notsubstring&product=glibc&query_format=advanced&v1=security)
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* [`security?` review requests](https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?f1=flagtypes.name&o1=substring&product=glibc&query_format=advanced&v1=security%3f)
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* [Open `security+` bugs](https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=SUSPENDED&bug_status=WAITING&bug_status=REOPENED&bug_status=VERIFIED&f1=flagtypes.name&o1=substring&product=glibc&query_format=advanced&v1=security%2B)
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## Fixing security bugs
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For changes to master, the regular [consensus-driven
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process](https://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/Consensus) must be followed. It
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makes sense to obtain consensus in private, to ensure that the patch is likely
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in a committable state, before disclosing an emboargoed vulnerability.
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Security backports to release branches need to follow the
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[release process](https://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/Release#General_policy).
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Contact the [website
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maintainers](https://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/MAINTAINERS#Maintainers_for_the_website)
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and have them draft a news entry for the website frontpage to direct users to
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the bug, the fix, or the mailing list discussions.
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## CVE assignment
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Security bugs flagged with `security+` should have [CVE identifiers](http://cve.mitre.org/about/).
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For bugs which are public (thus all bugs in Bugzilla), CVE assignment has to
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happen through the [oss-security mailing
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list](http://oss-security.openwall.org/wiki/mailing-lists/oss-security).
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(Downstreams will eventually request CVE assignment through their public
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Bugzilla monitoring processes.)
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For initially private security bugs, CVEs will be assigned as needed by the
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downstream security teams. Once a public bug is filed, the name should be
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included in Bugzilla.
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