Re: [PATCH 2/2] docs: admin-guide: Not every security bug should be kept hidden

[Greg Kroah-Hartman]

On Thu, Aug 27, 2020 at 12:53:19PM +0200, Krzysztof Kozlowski wrote:
> Document describes the process of handling security bugs but does not
> mention any criteria what is a "security bug".  Unlike
> submitting-patches.rst which explicitly says - publicly exploitable bug.
> 
> Many NULL pointer exceptions, off-by-one errors or overflows tend
> to look like security bug, so there might be a temptation to discuss
> them behind security list which is not an open list.
> 
> Such discussion limits the amount of testing and independent reviewing.
> Sacrificing open discussion is understandable in the case of real
> security issues but not for regular bugs.  These should be discussed
> publicly.
> 
> At the end, "security problems are just bugs".
> 
> Cc: Greg KH <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Marek Szyprowski <m.szyprowski@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Signed-off-by: Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzk@xxxxxxxxxx>
> 
> ---
> 
> Follow up to:
> https://lore.kernel.org/linux-usb/1425ab4f-ef7e-97d9-238f-0328ab51eb35@xxxxxxxxxxx/
> ---
>  Documentation/admin-guide/security-bugs.rst | 6 ++++++
>  1 file changed, 6 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/security-bugs.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/security-bugs.rst
> index c32eb786201c..7ebddbd4bbcd 100644
> --- a/Documentation/admin-guide/security-bugs.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/security-bugs.rst
> @@ -78,6 +78,12 @@ include linux-distros from the start. In this case, remember to prefix
>  the email Subject line with "[vs]" as described in the linux-distros wiki:
>  <http://oss-security.openwall.org/wiki/mailing-lists/distros#how-to-use-the-lists>
>  
> +Fixes for non-exploitable bugs which do not pose a real security risk, should
> +be disclosed in a regular way of submitting patches to Linux kernel (see
> +:ref:`Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst <submitting-patches>`).
> +Just because patch fixes some off-by-one or NULL pointer exception, does not
> +classify it as a security bug which should be discussed in closed channels.

I said this on another thread, but almost always, when we get reports
like this on security@k.o, we do push them back to public lists.

For the most part, this paragraph is not going to help much (mostly for
the reason that no one seems to read it, but that's a different
topic...)  We get crazy reports all the time, and that's fine, because
sometimes, there is a real issue in some of them.  And for that, we do
want to be careful.  We also have many docuemented "off-by-one" bugs
that were real security issues (there's a blog post somewhere about how
a developer turned such a bug into a root hole, can't find it right
now...)

So while I understand the temptation here, based on the current
security@k.o traffic, I doubt this will really change much :(

Also, you should have cc:ed that group when you are changing things that
will affect them.

thanks,

greg k-h