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PERLSECPOLICY(1pm)     Perl Programmers Reference Guide     PERLSECPOLICY(1pm)




NAME

       perlsecpolicy - Perl security report handling policy


DESCRIPTION

       The Perl project takes security issues seriously.

       The responsibility for handling security reports in a timely and
       effective manner has been delegated to a security team composed of a
       subset of the Perl core developers.

       This document describes how the Perl security team operates and how the
       team evaluates new security reports.


REPORTING SECURITY ISSUES IN PERL

       If you believe you have found a security vulnerability in the Perl
       interpreter or modules maintained in the core Perl codebase, email the
       details to perl-security@perl.org <mailto:perl-security@perl.org>.
       This address is a closed membership mailing list monitored by the Perl
       security team.

       You should receive an initial response to your report within 72 hours.
       If you do not receive a response in that time, please contact the Perl
       Steering Council <mailto:steering-council@perl.org>.

       When members of the security team reply to your messages, they will
       generally include the perl-security@perl.org address in the "To" or
       "CC" fields of the response. This allows all of the security team to
       follow the discussion and chime in as needed. Use the "Reply-all"
       functionality of your email client when you send subsequent responses
       so that the entire security team receives the message.

       The security team will evaluate your report and make an initial
       determination of whether it is likely to fit the scope of issues the
       team handles. General guidelines about how this is determined are
       detailed in the "WHAT ARE SECURITY ISSUES" section.

       If your report meets the team's criteria, an issue will be opened in
       the team's private issue tracker and you will be provided the issue's
       ID number.  Issue identifiers have the form perl-security#NNN. Include
       this identifier with any subsequent messages you send.

       The security team will send periodic updates about the status of your
       issue and guide you through any further action that is required to
       complete the vulnerability remediation process. The stages
       vulnerabilities typically go through are explained in the "HOW WE DEAL
       WITH SECURITY ISSUES" section.


WHAT ARE SECURITY ISSUES

       A vulnerability is a behavior of a software system that compromises the
       system's expected confidentiality, integrity or availability
       protections.

       A security issue is a bug in one or more specific components of a
       software system that creates a vulnerability.

       Software written in the Perl programming language is typically composed
       of many layers of software written by many different groups. It can be
       very complicated to determine which specific layer of a complex real-
       world application was responsible for preventing a vulnerable behavior,
       but this is an essential part of fixing the vulnerability.

   Software covered by the Perl security team
       The Perl security team handles security issues in:

       o   The Perl interpreter

       o   The Perl modules shipped with the interpreter that are developed in
           the core Perl repository

       o   The command line tools shipped with the interpreter that are
           developed in the core Perl repository

       Files under the cpan/ directory in Perl's repository and release
       tarballs are developed and maintained independently. The Perl security
       team does not handle security issues for these modules.

   Bugs that may qualify as security issues in Perl
       Perl is designed to be a fast and flexible general purpose programming
       language. The Perl interpreter and Perl modules make writing safe and
       secure applications easy, but they do have limitations.

       As a general rule, a bug in Perl needs to meet all of the following
       criteria to be considered a security issue:

       o   The vulnerable behavior is not mentioned in Perl's documentation or
           public issue tracker.

       o   The vulnerable behavior is not implied by an expected behavior.

       o   The vulnerable behavior is not a generally accepted limitation of
           the implementation.

       o   The vulnerable behavior is likely to be exposed to attack in
           otherwise secure applications written in Perl.

       o   The vulnerable behavior provides a specific tangible benefit to an
           attacker that triggers the behavior.

   Bugs that do not qualify as security issues in Perl
       There are certain categories of bugs that are frequently reported to
       the security team that do not meet the criteria listed above.

       The following is a list of commonly reported bugs that are not handled
       as security issues.

       Feeding untrusted code to the interpreter

       The Perl parser is not designed to evaluate untrusted code.  If your
       application requires the evaluation of untrusted code, it should rely
       on an operating system level sandbox for its security.

       Stack overflows due to excessive recursion

       Excessive recursion is often caused by code that does not enforce
       limits on inputs. The Perl interpreter assumes limits on recursion will
       be enforced by the application.

       Out of memory errors

       Common Perl constructs such as "pack", the "x" operator, and regular
       expressions accept numeric quantifiers that control how much memory
       will be allocated to store intermediate values or results.  If you
       allow an attacker to supply these quantifiers and consume all available
       memory, the Perl interpreter will not prevent it.

       Escape from a Safe compartment

       Opcode restrictions and Safe compartments are not supported as security
       mechanisms. The Perl parser is not designed to evaluate untrusted code.

       Use of the "p" and "P" pack templates

       These templates are unsafe by design.

       Stack not reference-counted issues

       These bugs typically present as use-after-free errors or as assertion
       failures on the type of a "SV". Stack not reference-counted crashes
       usually occur because code is both modifying a reference or glob and
       using the values referenced by that glob or reference.

       This type of bug is a long standing issue with the Perl interpreter
       that seldom occurs in normal code. Examples of this type of bug
       generally assume that attacker-supplied code will be evaluated by the
       Perl interpreter.

       Thawing attacker-supplied data with Storable

       Storable is designed to be a very fast serialization format.  It is not
       designed to be safe for deserializing untrusted inputs.

       Using attacker supplied SDBM_File databases

       The SDBM_File module is not intended for use with untrusted SDBM
       databases.

       Badly encoded UTF-8 flagged scalars

       This type of bug occurs when the ":utf8" PerlIO layer is used to read
       badly encoded data, or other mechanisms are used to directly manipulate
       the UTF-8 flag on an SV.

       A badly encoded UTF-8 flagged SV is not a valid SV. Code that creates
       SV's in this fashion is corrupting Perl's internal state.

       Issues that exist only in blead, or in a release candidate

       The blead branch and Perl release candidates do not receive security
       support. Security defects that are present only in pre-release versions
       of Perl are handled through the normal bug reporting and resolution
       process.

       CPAN modules or other Perl project resources

       The Perl security team is focused on the Perl interpreter and modules
       maintained in the core Perl codebase. The team has no special access to
       fix CPAN modules, applications written in Perl, Perl project websites,
       Perl mailing lists or the Perl IRC servers.

       Emulated POSIX behaviors on Windows systems

       The Perl interpreter attempts to emulate "fork", "system", "exec" and
       other POSIX behaviors on Windows systems. This emulation has many
       quirks that are extensively documented in Perl's public issue tracker.
       Changing these behaviors would cause significant disruption for
       existing users on Windows.

   Bugs that require special categorization
       Some bugs in the Perl interpreter occur in areas of the codebase that
       are both security sensitive and prone to failure during normal usage.

       Regular expressions

       Untrusted regular expressions are generally safe to compile and match
       against with several caveats. The following behaviors of Perl's regular
       expression engine are the developer's responsibility to constrain.

       The evaluation of untrusted regular expressions while "use re 'eval';"
       is in effect is never safe.

       Regular expressions are not guaranteed to compile or evaluate in any
       specific finite time frame.

       Regular expressions may consume all available system memory when they
       are compiled or evaluated.

       Regular expressions may cause excessive recursion that halts the perl
       interpreter.

       As a general rule, do not expect Perl's regular expression engine to be
       resistant to denial of service attacks.

       DB_File, ODBM_File, or GDBM_File databases

       These modules rely on external libraries to interact with database
       files.

       Bugs caused by reading and writing these file formats are generally
       caused by the underlying library implementation and are not security
       issues in Perl.

       Bugs where Perl mishandles unexpected valid return values from the
       underlying libraries may qualify as security issues in Perl.

       Algorithmic complexity attacks

       The perl interpreter is reasonably robust to algorithmic complexity
       attacks. It is not immune to them.

       Algorithmic complexity bugs that depend on the interpreter processing
       extremely large amounts of attacker supplied data are not generally
       handled as security issues.

       See "Algorithmic Complexity Attacks" in perlsec for additional
       information.


HOW WE DEAL WITH SECURITY ISSUES

       The Perl security team follows responsible disclosure practices.
       Security issues are kept secret until a fix is readily available for
       most users. This minimizes inherent risks users face from
       vulnerabilities in Perl.

       Hiding problems from the users temporarily is a necessary trade-off to
       keep them safe. Hiding problems from users permanently is not the goal.

       When you report a security issue privately to the
       perl-security@perl.org <mailto:perl-security@perl.org> contact address,
       we normally expect you to follow responsible disclosure practices in
       the handling of the report. If you are unable or unwilling to keep the
       issue secret until a fix is available to users you should state this
       clearly in the initial report.

       The security team's vulnerability remediation workflow is intended to
       be as open and transparent as possible about the state of your security
       report.

   Perl's vulnerability remediation workflow
       Initial contact

       New vulnerability reports will receive an initial reply within 72 hours
       from the time they arrive at the security team's mailing list. If you
       do not receive any response in that time, contact the Perl Steering
       Council <mailto:steering-council@perl.org>.

       The initial response sent by the security team will confirm your
       message was received and provide an estimated time frame for the
       security team's triage analysis.

       Initial triage

       The security team will evaluate the report and determine whether or not
       it is likely to meet the criteria for handling as a security issue.

       The security team aims to complete the initial report triage within two
       weeks' time. Complex issues that require significant discussion or
       research may take longer.

       If the security report cannot be reproduced or does not meet the team's
       criteria for handling as a security issue, you will be notified by
       email and given an opportunity to respond.

       Issue ID assignment

       Security reports that pass initial triage analysis are turned into
       issues in the security team's private issue tracker. When a report
       progresses to this point you will be provided the issue ID for future
       reference. These identifiers have the format perl-security#NNN or
       Perl/perl-security#NNN.

       The assignment of an issue ID does not confirm that a security report
       represents a vulnerability in Perl. Many reports require further
       analysis to reach that determination.

       Issues in the security team's private tracker are used to collect
       details about the problem and track progress towards a resolution.
       These notes and other details are not made public when the issue is
       resolved. Keeping the issue notes private allows the security team to
       freely discuss attack methods, attack tools, and other related private
       issues.

       Development of patches

       Members of the security team will inspect the report and related code
       in detail to produce fixes for supported versions of Perl.

       If the team discovers that the reported issue does not meet the team's
       criteria at this stage, you will be notified by email and given an
       opportunity to respond before the issue is closed.

       The team may discuss potential fixes with you or provide you with
       patches for testing purposes during this time frame. No information
       should be shared publicly at this stage.

       CVE ID assignment

       Once an issue is fully confirmed and a potential fix has been found,
       the security team will request a CVE identifier for the issue to use in
       public announcements.

       Details like the range of vulnerable Perl versions and identities of
       the people that discovered the flaw need to be collected to submit the
       CVE ID request.

       The security team may ask you to clarify the exact name we should use
       when crediting discovery of the issue. The "Vulnerability credit and
       bounties" section of this document explains our preferred format for
       this credit.

       Once a CVE ID has been assigned, you will be notified by email.  The
       vulnerability should not be discussed publicly at this stage.

       Pre-release notifications

       When the security team is satisfied that the fix for a security issue
       is ready to release publicly, a pre-release notification announcement
       is sent to the major redistributors of Perl.

       This pre-release announcement includes a list of Perl versions that are
       affected by the flaw, an analysis of the risks to users, patches the
       security team has produced, and any information about mitigations or
       backporting fixes to older versions of Perl that the security team has
       available.

       The pre-release announcement will include a specific target date when
       the issue will be announced publicly. The time frame between the pre-
       release announcement and the release date allows redistributors to
       prepare and test their own updates and announcements. During this
       period the vulnerability details and fixes are embargoed and should not
       be shared publicly. This embargo period may be extended further if
       problems are discovered during testing.

       You will be sent the portions of pre-release announcements that are
       relevant to the specific issue you reported. This email will include
       the target release date. Additional updates will be sent if the target
       release date changes.

       Pre-release testing

       The Perl security team does not directly produce official Perl
       releases. The team releases security fixes by placing commits in Perl's
       public git repository and sending announcements.

       Many users and redistributors prefer using official Perl releases
       rather than applying patches to an older release. The security team
       works with Perl's release managers to make this possible.

       New official releases of Perl are generally produced and tested on
       private systems during the pre-release embargo period.

       Release of fixes and announcements

       At the end of the embargo period the security fixes will be committed
       to Perl's public git repository and announcements will be sent to the
       perl5-porters <https://lists.perl.org/list/perl5-porters.html> and oss-
       security <https://oss-security.openwall.org/wiki/mailing-lists/oss-
       security> mailing lists.

       If official Perl releases are ready, they will be published at this
       time and announced on the perl5-porters
       <https://lists.perl.org/list/perl5-porters.html> mailing list.

       The security team will send a follow-up notification to everyone that
       participated in the pre-release embargo period once the release process
       is finished. Vulnerability reporters and Perl redistributors should not
       publish their own announcements or fixes until the Perl security team's
       release process is complete.

   Publicly known and zero-day security issues
       The security team's vulnerability remediation workflow assumes that
       issues are reported privately and kept secret until they are resolved.
       This isn't always the case and information occasionally leaks out
       before a fix is ready.

       In these situations the team must decide whether operating in secret
       increases or decreases the risk to users of Perl. In some cases being
       open about the risk a security issue creates will allow users to defend
       against it, in other cases calling attention to an unresolved security
       issue will make it more likely to be misused.

       Zero-day security issues

       If an unresolved critical security issue in Perl is being actively
       abused to attack systems the security team will send out announcements
       as rapidly as possible with any mitigations the team has available.

       Perl's public defect tracker will be used to handle the issue so that
       additional information, fixes, and CVE IDs are visible to affected
       users as rapidly as possible.

       Other leaks of security issue information

       Depending on the prominence of the information revealed about a
       security issue and the issue's risk of becoming a zero-day attack, the
       security team may skip all or part of its normal remediation workflow.

       If the security team learns of a significant security issue after it
       has been identified and resolved in Perl's public issue tracker, the
       team will request a CVE ID and send an announcement to inform users.

   Vulnerability credit and bounties
       The Perl project appreciates the effort security researchers invest in
       making Perl safe and secure.

       Since much of this work is hidden from the public, crediting
       researchers publicly is an important part of the vulnerability
       remediation process.

       Credits in vulnerability announcements

       When security issues are fixed we will attempt to credit the specific
       researcher(s) that discovered the flaw in our announcements.

       Credits are announced using the researcher's preferred full name.

       If the researcher's contributions were funded by a specific company or
       part of an organized vulnerability research project, we will include a
       short name for this group at the researcher's request.

       Perl's announcements are written in the English language using the 7bit
       ASCII character set to be reproducible in a variety of formats. We do
       not include hyperlinks, domain names or marketing material with these
       acknowledgments.

       In the event that proper credit for vulnerability discovery cannot be
       established or there is a disagreement between the Perl security team
       and the researcher about how the credit should be given, it will be
       omitted from announcements.

       Bounties for Perl vulnerabilities

       The Perl project is a non-profit volunteer effort. We do not provide
       any monetary rewards for reporting security issues in Perl.

       The Internet Bug Bounty <https://internetbugbounty.org/> offers
       monetary rewards for some Perl security issues after they are fully
       resolved. The terms of this program are available at HackerOne
       <https://hackerone.com/ibb-perl>.

       This program is not run by the Perl project or the Perl security team.



perl v5.34.0                      2021-05-04                PERLSECPOLICY(1pm)

perl 5.34.0 - Generated Sat Mar 5 05:38:02 CST 2022
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