Go Security Policy

Overview

This document explains the Go Security team’s process for handling issues reported and what to expect in return.

Reporting a Security Bug

All security bugs in the Go distribution should be reported by email to security@golang.org. This mail is delivered to the Go Security team.

To ensure your report is not marked as spam, please include the word “vulnerability” anywhere in your email. Please use a descriptive subject line for your report email.

Your email will be acknowledged within 7 days, and you’ll be kept up to date with the progress until resolution. Your issue will be fixed or made public within 90 days.

If you have not received a reply to your email within 7 days, please follow up with the Go security team again at security@golang.org. Please make sure the word vulnerability is in your email.

If after 3 more days you have still not received an acknowledgement of your report, it is possible that your email might have been marked as spam. In that case, please file an issue here. Select “I want to report a technical security or an abuse risk related bug in a Google product (SQLi, XSS, etc.)", and list “Go” as the affected product.

Tracks

Depending on the nature of your issue, it will be categorized by the Go security team as an issue in the PUBLIC, PRIVATE, or URGENT track. All security issues will be issued CVE numbers.

PUBLIC

Issues in the PUBLIC track affect niche configurations, have very limited impact, or are already widely known.

PUBLIC track issues are fixed in public, and get backported to the next scheduled minor releases (which occur ~monthly). The release announcement includes details of these issues, but there is no pre-announcement.

Examples of past PUBLIC issues include:

• #44916: archive/zip: can panic when calling Reader.Open
• #44913: encoding/xml: infinite loop when using xml.NewTokenDecoder with a custom TokenReader
• #43786: encoding/xml: infinite crypto/elliptic: incorrect operations on the P-224 curve
• #40928: net/http/cgi,net/http/fcgi: Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) when Content-Type is not specified
• #40618: encoding/binary: ReadUvarint and ReadVarint can read an unlimited number of bytes from invalid inputs
• #36834: crypto/x509: certificate validation bypass on Windows 10

PRIVATE

Issues in the PRIVATE track are violations of committed security properties.

PRIVATE track issues are fixed in the next scheduled minor releases, and are kept private until then.

Three to seven days before the release, a pre-announcement is sent to golang-announce, announcing the presence of a security fix in the upcoming releases, and whether the issue affects the standard library, the toolchain, or both (but not disclosing any more details).

Some examples of past PRIVATE issues include:

• #42552: math/big: panic during recursive division of very large numbers
• #34902: net/http: Expect 100-continue panics in httputil.ReverseProxy
• #39360: crypto/x509: Certificate.Verify method seemingly ignoring EKU requirements on Windows
• #34960: crypto/dsa: invalid public key causes panic in dsa.Verify
• #34540: net/http: invalid headers are normalized, allowing request smuggling
• #29098: net/url: URL.Parse Multiple Parsing Issues

URGENT

URGENT track issues are a threat to the Go ecosystem’s integrity, or are being actively exploited in the wild leading to severe damage. There are no recent examples, but they would include remote code execution in net/http, or practical key recovery in crypto/tls.

URGENT track issues are fixed in private, and trigger an immediate dedicated security release, possibly with no pre-announcement.

Flagging Existing Issues as Security-related

If you believe that an existing issue is security-related, we ask that you send an email to security@golang.org. The email should include the issue ID and a short description of why it should be handled according to this security policy.

Disclosure Process

The Go project uses the following disclosure process:

1. Once the security report is received it is assigned a primary handler. This person coordinates the fix and release process.

2. The issue is confirmed and a list of affected software is determined.

3. Code is audited to find any potential similar problems.

4. If it is determined, in consultation with the submitter, that a CVE number is required, the primary handler will obtain one.

5. Fixes are prepared for the two most recent major releases and the head/master revision. Fixes are prepared for the two most recent major releases and merged to head/master.

6. On the date that the fixes are applied, announcements are sent to golang-announce, golang-dev, and golang-nuts.

This process can take some time, especially when coordination is required with maintainers of other projects. Every effort will be made to handle the bug in as timely a manner as possible, however it’s important that we follow the process described above to ensure that disclosures are handled consistently.

For security issues that include the assignment of a CVE number, the issue is listed publicly under the “Golang” product on the CVEDetails website as well as the National Vulnerability Disclosure site.

Receiving Security Updates

The best way to receive security announcements is to subscribe to the golang-announce mailing list. Any messages pertaining to a security issue will be prefixed with [security].

Comments on This Policy

If you have any suggestions to improve this policy, please file an issue for discussion.