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Electronic Frontier Foundation

Security Vulnerability Disclosure Program

PROJECT
By William Theaker
December 3, 2015

Security Vulnerability Disclosure Program

Also check out our EFF Security Hall of Fame to see the heroes that have already reported security vulnerabilities to us!

Overview

EFF is committed to protecting the privacy and security of our members, users of our software tools, and visitors to EFF sites. Our Vulnerability Disclosure Program is intended to minimize the impact any security flaws have on our tools, our hosted services, or their users. EFF's Vulnerability Disclosure Program covers two types of software: select software partially or primarily written by EFF, and publicly facing software and systems EFF makes use of for its websites and other Internet services.

Scope: Software Written by EFF

In addition to the software and systems described below, EFF's Vulnerability Disclosure Program applies to security vulnerabilities discovered in any of the following software:

In order to qualify, the vulnerability must exist in the latest public release (including officially released public betas) of the software. Only security vulnerabilities will qualify. We would love it if people reported other bugs via the appropriate channels, but since the purpose of this program is to fix security vulnerabilities, only bugs that lead to security vulnerabilities will be eligible for rewards.

Scope: Software and Systems EFF Uses

In addition to the software described above, EFF's Vulnerability Disclosure Program applies to security vulnerabilities discovered in any web services or other public facing software running on any of the following domains:

  • eff.org and all subdomains (*.eff.org)
  • panopticlick.com
  • digcit.org
  • dearfcc.org
  • savecrypto.org
  • necessaryandproportionate.org
  • trollingeffects.org
  • manilaprinciples.org
  • standagainstspying.org
  • democracy.io

These are the vulnerabilities we are looking for:

  • Cross-site request forgery (CSRF/XSRF)
  • Cross-site scripting (XSS)
  • Authentication bypass
  • Remote code execution
  • SQL Injection
  • Privilege escalation

Bugs not listed will be accepted at our discretion. action.eff.org is operated by Salsa Labs, a third-party vendor.  While we are happy to receive vulnerability reports for this site and pass them along, ultimately Salsa Labs is responsible for resolving the vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities in server software such as Apache or Drupal, are in scope, if the vulnerability has already been publicly reported, and a patch or software update for the vulnerability has been available from the software's maintainers for at least 5 days. In order to qualify, the vulnerability must exist in software or a service that is actively running on EFF's servers at the time the vulnerability is disclosed. (In other words, you won't get a reward just for telling us about the latest CVE, unless we've neglected to patch it/update our software 5 days after a fix has been released.) Security vulnerabilities created by the specific configuration of software on EFF servers are also in scope under this program. Vulnerabilities that require physical access to server hardware are ineligble for submission.

Guidelines

Please adhere to the following guidelines in order to be eligible for rewards under this disclosure program:

  • Do not permanently modify or delete EFF-hosted data.
  • Do not intentionally access non-public EFF data any more than is necessary to demonstrate the vulnerability.
  • Do not DDoS or otherwise disrupt, interrupt or degrade our internal or external services.
  • Do not share confidential information obtained from EFF, including but not limited to member or donor payment information, with any third party.
  • Social engineering is out of scope. Do not send phishing emails to, or use other social engineering techniques against, anyone, including EFF staff, members, vendors, or partners.

In addition, please allow EFF at least 90 days to fix the vulnerability before publicly discussing or blogging about it. EFF believes that security researchers have a First Amendment right to report their research and that disclosure is highly beneficial, and understands that it is a highly subjective question of when and how to hold back details to mitigate the risk that vulnerability information will be misused. If you believe that earlier disclosure is necessary, please let us know so that we can begin a conversation.

Reporting

Just as important as discovering security flaws is reporting the findings so that users can protect themselves and vendors can repair their products. Public disclosure of security information enables informed consumer choice and inspires vendors to be truthful about flaws, repair vulnerabilities and build more secure products. Disclosure and peer review advances the state of the art in security. Researchers can figure out where new technologies need to be developed, and the information can help policymakers understand where problems tend to occur.

On the other hand, vulnerability information can give attackers who were not otherwise sophisticated enough to find the problem on their own the very information they need to exploit a security hole in a computer or system and cause harm. Therefore we ask that you privately report the vulnerability to EFF before public disclosure.

Send an email to vulnerabilities@eff.org using the GPG key located here, with information about the vulnerability and detailed steps on how to replicate it. Submissions that include detailed information on how to fix the corresponding vulnerability are more likely to receive more valuable rewards.

If you do not want to be publicly thanked on our EFF Security Hall of Fame page (or elsewhere), please let us know that you want your submission to be confidential in your report email. We can still provide rewards for confidential submissions, if you like.

We are also happy to accept anonymous vulnerability reports, but of course we can't send you our thanks if you report a vulnerability anonymously.

We will make every effort to respond to valid reports within seven business days.

The validity of a vulnerability will be judged at the sole discretion of EFF.

Coders’ Rights Project Vulnerability Reporting FAQ

Rewards

Not all reported issues may qualify for a reward. Rewards are awarded at EFF's sole discretion. As a member-driven nonprofit we are unable to afford cash bounties (sorry!), but can offer non-cash rewards, including:

If you would like a particular reward (e.g., you already have a t-shirt and would prefer a sticker pack), please let us know when you report the vulnerability. While the reward EFF provides in exchange for disclosing a vulnerability under this policy will be up to the sole discretion of EFF, we will certainly take your request into consideration.

Please note that in some cases we will be unable to provide a physical reward if the shipping cost is prohibitively expensive.

Only the first report we receive about a given vulnerability will be rewarded. We cannot send rewards where prohibited by law (i.e. North Korea, Cuba, etc.).

Questions

If you have any questions about our vulnerability disclosure policy, please email vulnerabilities@eff.org (GPG key).

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