Xen.org Security Problem Response Process

Introduction

Computer systems have bugs. Currently recognised best practice for bugs with security implications is to notify significant downstream users in private; leave a reasonable interval for downstreams to respond and prepare updated software packages; then make public disclosure.

We want to encourage people to report bugs they find to us. Therefore we will treat with respect the requests of discoverers, or other vendors, who report problems to us.

Specific process

1. We request that anyone who discovers a vulnerability in xen.org software reports this by email to security (at) xen (dot) org.

   (This also covers the situation where an existing published changeset is retrospectively found to be a security fix)

2. Immediately, and in parallel:

1. Those of us on the xen.org team who are aware of the problem will notify security@xen if disclosure wasn't made there already.

2. If the vulnerability is not already public, security@xen will negotiate with discoverer regarding embargo date and disclosure schedule. See below for detailed discussion.

3. Furthermore, also in parallel:

3. security@xen will check whether the discoverer, or other people already aware of the problem, have allocated a CVE number. If not, we will acquire a CVE candidate number ourselves, and make sure that everyone who is aware of the problem is also aware of the CVE number.

4. If we think other software systems (for example, competing hypervisor systems) are likely to be affected by the same vulnerability, we will try to make those other projects aware of the problem and include them in the advisory preparation process.

(This may rely on the other project(s) having documented and responsive security contact points)

5. We will prepare or check patch(es) which fix the vulnerability. This would ideally include all relevant backports.

6. We will determine which systems/configurations/versions are vulnerable, and what the impact of the vulnerability is. Depending on the nature of the vulnerability this may involve sharing information about the vulnerability (in confidence, if the issue is embargoed) with hardware vendors and/or other software projects.

7. We will write a Xen advisory including information from (b)-(f)

4. Advisory pre-release:

   This occurs only if the advisory is embargoed (ie, the problem is not already public):

   As soon as our advisory is available, we will send it, including patches, to members of the Xen security pre-disclosure list. For more information about this list, see below.

   At this stage the advisory will be clearly marked with the embargo date.

5. Advisory public release:

   At the embargo date we will publish the advisory, and push bugfix changesets to public revision control trees.

   Public advisories will be posted to xen-devel, xen-users and xen-annnounce and will be added to the Security Announcements wiki page.

   Copies will also be sent to the pre-disclosure list, unless the advisory was already sent there previously during the embargo period and has not been updated since.

6. Updates

   If new information or better patches become available, or we discover mistakes, we may issue an amended (revision 2 or later) public advisory. This will also be sent to the pre-disclosure list.

Embargo and disclosure schedule

If a vulnerability is not already public, we would like to notify significant distributors and operators of Xen so that they can prepare patched software in advance. This will help minimise the degree to which there are Xen users who are vulnerable but can't get patches.

As discussed, we will negotiate with discoverers about disclosure schedule. Our usual starting point for that negotiation, unless there are reasons to diverge from this, would be:

1. One working week between notification arriving at security@xen and the issue of our own advisory to our predisclosure list. We will use this time to gather information and prepare our advisory, including required patches.

2. Two working weeks between issue of our advisory to our predisclosure list and publication.

When a discoverer reports a problem to us and requests longer delays than we would consider ideal, we will honour such a request if reasonable. If a discoverer wants an accelerated disclosure compared to what we would prefer, we naturally do not have the power to insist that a discoverer waits for us to be ready and will honour the date specified by the discoverer.

Naturally, if a vulnerability is being exploited in the wild we will make immediately public release of the advisory and patch(es) and expect others to do likewise.

Pre-disclosure list

Xen.org operates a pre-disclosure list. This list contains the email addresses (ideally, role addresses) of the security response teams for significant Xen operators and distributors.

This includes:

• Large-scale hosting providers;
• Large-scale organisational users of Xen;
• Vendors of widely-deployed Xen-based systems;
• Distributors of widely-deployed operating systems with Xen support.

This includes both corporations and community institutions.

Here as a rule of thumb "large scale" and "widely deployed" means an installed base of 300,000 or more Xen guests; other well-established organisations with a mature security response process will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

The list of entities on the pre-disclosure list is public. (Just the list of projects and organisations, not the actual email addresses.)

Pre-disclosure list members are expected to maintain the confidentiality of the vulnerability up to the embargo date which security@xen have agreed with the discoverer.

Specifically, prior to the embargo date, pre-disclosure list members should not make available, even to their own customers and partners:

• the Xen.org advisory
• their own advisory
• revision control commits which are a fix for the problem
• patched software (even in binary form) without prior consultation with security@xen and/or the discoverer.

Organisations who meet the criteria should contact security@xen if they wish to receive pre-disclosure of advisories.

The pre-disclosure list will also receive copies of public advisories when they are first issued or updated.

Organizations on the pre-disclosure list:

This is a list of organisations on the pre-disclosure list (not email addresses or internal business groups).

• Amazon
• Citrix
• Debian
• Intel
• Linode
• Novell
• Oracle
• Rackspace
• Redhat
• SuSE
• Ubuntu
• Xen.org security response team
• Xen 3.4 stable tree maintainer

Change History

• v1.2 Apr 2012: Added pre-disclosure list
• v1.1 Feb 2012: Added link to Security Announcements wiki page
• v1.0 Dec 2011: Intial document published after review