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Documentation: embargoed-hardware-issues.rst: minor cleanups and fixes

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The embargoed-hardware-issues.rst file needed a bunch of minor grammar,
punctuation, and syntax cleanups based on feedback we have gotten over
the past few years.  The main change here is the term "silicon" being
used over "hardware" to differentiate between companies that make a chip
(i.e. a CPU) and those that take the chip and put it into their system.

No process changes are made here at all, only clarification for the way
the current process works.

All of these changes have been approved by a review from a large number
of different open source legal members, representing the companies
involved in this process.

Acked-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/2024073032-outsource-sniff-e8ea@gregkh
Co-developed-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Co-developed-by: Michael Dolan <mdolan@linuxfoundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Michael Dolan <mdolan@linuxfoundation.org>
Co-developed-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
This commit is contained in:
Greg Kroah-Hartman 2024-07-30 18:09:31 +02:00
parent cd04d50979
commit a2e4bdca2c
1 changed files with 65 additions and 57 deletions
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122
Documentation/process/embargoed-hardware-issues.rst
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@ -13,9 +13,9 @@ kernel.
Hardware issues like Meltdown, Spectre, L1TF etc. must be treated
differently because they usually affect all Operating Systems ("OS") and
therefore need coordination across different OS vendors, distributions,
hardware vendors and other parties. For some of the issues, software
mitigations can depend on microcode or firmware updates, which need further
coordination.
silicon vendors, hardware integrators, and other parties. For some of the
issues, software mitigations can depend on microcode or firmware updates,
which need further coordination.
.. _Contact:
@ -32,8 +32,8 @@ Linux kernel security team (:ref:`Documentation/admin-guide/
<securitybugs>`) instead.
The team can be contacted by email at <hardware-security@kernel.org>. This
is a private list of security officers who will help you to coordinate a
fix according to our documented process.
is a private list of security officers who will help you coordinate a fix
according to our documented process.
The list is encrypted and email to the list can be sent by either PGP or
S/MIME encrypted and must be signed with the reporter's PGP key or S/MIME
@ -43,7 +43,7 @@ the following URLs:
- PGP: https://www.kernel.org/static/files/hardware-security.asc
- S/MIME: https://www.kernel.org/static/files/hardware-security.crt
While hardware security issues are often handled by the affected hardware
While hardware security issues are often handled by the affected silicon
vendor, we welcome contact from researchers or individuals who have
identified a potential hardware flaw.
@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ of Linux Foundation's IT operations personnel technically have the
ability to access the embargoed information, but are obliged to
confidentiality by their employment contract. Linux Foundation IT
personnel are also responsible for operating and managing the rest of
kernel.org infrastructure.
kernel.org's infrastructure.
The Linux Foundation's current director of IT Project infrastructure is
Konstantin Ryabitsev.
@ -85,7 +85,7 @@ Memorandum of Understanding
The Linux kernel community has a deep understanding of the requirement to
keep hardware security issues under embargo for coordination between
different OS vendors, distributors, hardware vendors and other parties.
different OS vendors, distributors, silicon vendors, and other parties.
The Linux kernel community has successfully handled hardware security
issues in the past and has the necessary mechanisms in place to allow
@ -103,11 +103,11 @@ the issue in the best technical way.
All involved developers pledge to adhere to the embargo rules and to keep
the received information confidential. Violation of the pledge will lead to
immediate exclusion from the current issue and removal from all related
mailing-lists. In addition, the hardware security team will also exclude
mailing lists. In addition, the hardware security team will also exclude
the offender from future issues. The impact of this consequence is a highly
effective deterrent in our community. In case a violation happens the
hardware security team will inform the involved parties immediately. If you
or anyone becomes aware of a potential violation, please report it
or anyone else becomes aware of a potential violation, please report it
immediately to the Hardware security officers.
@ -124,14 +124,16 @@ method for these types of issues.
Start of Disclosure
"""""""""""""""""""
Disclosure starts by contacting the Linux kernel hardware security team by
email. This initial contact should contain a description of the problem and
a list of any known affected hardware. If your organization builds or
distributes the affected hardware, we encourage you to also consider what
other hardware could be affected.
Disclosure starts by emailing the Linux kernel hardware security team per
the Contact section above. This initial contact should contain a
description of the problem and a list of any known affected silicon. If
your organization builds or distributes the affected hardware, we encourage
you to also consider what other hardware could be affected. The disclosing
party is responsible for contacting the affected silicon vendors in a
timely manner.
The hardware security team will provide an incident-specific encrypted
mailing-list which will be used for initial discussion with the reporter,
mailing list which will be used for initial discussion with the reporter,
further disclosure, and coordination of fixes.
The hardware security team will provide the disclosing party a list of
@ -158,8 +160,8 @@ This serves several purposes:
- The disclosed entities can be contacted to name experts who should
participate in the mitigation development.
- If an expert which is required to handle an issue is employed by an
listed entity or member of an listed entity, then the response teams can
- If an expert who is required to handle an issue is employed by a listed
entity or member of an listed entity, then the response teams can
request the disclosure of that expert from that entity. This ensures
that the expert is also part of the entity's response team.
@ -169,8 +171,8 @@ Disclosure
The disclosing party provides detailed information to the initial response
team via the specific encrypted mailing-list.
From our experience the technical documentation of these issues is usually
a sufficient starting point and further technical clarification is best
From our experience, the technical documentation of these issues is usually
a sufficient starting point, and further technical clarification is best
done via email.
Mitigation development
@ -179,35 +181,39 @@ Mitigation development
The initial response team sets up an encrypted mailing-list or repurposes
an existing one if appropriate.
Using a mailing-list is close to the normal Linux development process and
has been successfully used in developing mitigations for various hardware
Using a mailing list is close to the normal Linux development process and
has been successfully used to develop mitigations for various hardware
security issues in the past.
The mailing-list operates in the same way as normal Linux development.
Patches are posted, discussed and reviewed and if agreed on applied to a
non-public git repository which is only accessible to the participating
The mailing list operates in the same way as normal Linux development.
Patches are posted, discussed, and reviewed and if agreed upon, applied to
a non-public git repository which is only accessible to the participating
developers via a secure connection. The repository contains the main
development branch against the mainline kernel and backport branches for
stable kernel versions as necessary.
The initial response team will identify further experts from the Linux
kernel developer community as needed. Bringing in experts can happen at any
time of the development process and needs to be handled in a timely manner.
kernel developer community as needed. Any involved party can suggest
further experts to be included, each of which will be subject to the same
requirements outlined above.
If an expert is employed by or member of an entity on the disclosure list
Bringing in experts can happen at any time in the development process and
needs to be handled in a timely manner.
If an expert is employed by or a member of an entity on the disclosure list
provided by the disclosing party, then participation will be requested from
the relevant entity.
If not, then the disclosing party will be informed about the experts
If not, then the disclosing party will be informed about the experts'
participation. The experts are covered by the Memorandum of Understanding
and the disclosing party is requested to acknowledge the participation. In
case that the disclosing party has a compelling reason to object, then this
objection has to be raised within five work days and resolved with the
incident team immediately. If the disclosing party does not react within
five work days this is taken as silent acknowledgement.
and the disclosing party is requested to acknowledge their participation.
In the case where the disclosing party has a compelling reason to object,
any objection must to be raised within five working days and resolved with
the incident team immediately. If the disclosing party does not react
within five working days this is taken as silent acknowledgment.
After acknowledgement or resolution of an objection the expert is disclosed
by the incident team and brought into the development process.
After the incident team acknowledges or resolves an objection, the expert
is disclosed and brought into the development process.
List participants may not communicate about the issue outside of the
private mailing list. List participants may not use any shared resources
@ -217,19 +223,20 @@ private mailing list. List participants may not use any shared resources
Coordinated release
"""""""""""""""""""
The involved parties will negotiate the date and time where the embargo
ends. At that point the prepared mitigations are integrated into the
relevant kernel trees and published. There is no pre-notification process:
fixes are published in public and available to everyone at the same time.
The involved parties will negotiate the date and time when the embargo
ends. At that point, the prepared mitigations are published into the
relevant kernel trees. There is no pre-notification process: the
mitigations are published in public and available to everyone at the same
time.
While we understand that hardware security issues need coordinated embargo
time, the embargo time should be constrained to the minimum time which is
required for all involved parties to develop, test and prepare the
time, the embargo time should be constrained to the minimum time that is
required for all involved parties to develop, test, and prepare their
mitigations. Extending embargo time artificially to meet conference talk
dates or other non-technical reasons is creating more work and burden for
the involved developers and response teams as the patches need to be kept
up to date in order to follow the ongoing upstream kernel development,
which might create conflicting changes.
dates or other non-technical reasons creates more work and burden for the
involved developers and response teams as the patches need to be kept up to
date in order to follow the ongoing upstream kernel development, which
might create conflicting changes.
CVE assignment
""""""""""""""
@ -275,34 +282,35 @@ an involved disclosed party. The current ambassadors list:
If you want your organization to be added to the ambassadors list, please
contact the hardware security team. The nominated ambassador has to
understand and support our process fully and is ideally well connected in
understand and support our process fully and is ideally well-connected in
the Linux kernel community.
Encrypted mailing-lists
-----------------------
We use encrypted mailing-lists for communication. The operating principle
We use encrypted mailing lists for communication. The operating principle
of these lists is that email sent to the list is encrypted either with the
list's PGP key or with the list's S/MIME certificate. The mailing-list
list's PGP key or with the list's S/MIME certificate. The mailing list
software decrypts the email and re-encrypts it individually for each
subscriber with the subscriber's PGP key or S/MIME certificate. Details
about the mailing-list software and the setup which is used to ensure the
about the mailing list software and the setup that is used to ensure the
security of the lists and protection of the data can be found here:
https://korg.wiki.kernel.org/userdoc/remail.
List keys
^^^^^^^^^
For initial contact see :ref:`Contact`. For incident specific mailing-lists
the key and S/MIME certificate are conveyed to the subscribers by email
sent from the specific list.
For initial contact see the :ref:`Contact` section above. For incident
specific mailing lists, the key and S/MIME certificate are conveyed to the
subscribers by email sent from the specific list.
Subscription to incident specific lists
Subscription to incident-specific lists
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Subscription is handled by the response teams. Disclosed parties who want
to participate in the communication send a list of potential subscribers to
the response team so the response team can validate subscription requests.
Subscription to incident-specific lists is handled by the response teams.
Disclosed parties who want to participate in the communication send a list
of potential experts to the response team so the response team can validate
subscription requests.
Each subscriber needs to send a subscription request to the response team
by email. The email must be signed with the subscriber's PGP key or S/MIME