Mission
To provide utmost secure operating environment to the Fedora users.
How
Fedora Security Team aims to ensure that users are protected from any vulnerabilities that exist in Fedora packages. The vulnerabilities are reported to Fedora package maintainers via Bugzilla. These bugs are marked with keywords: security attribute in Bugzilla, for ex. => ndjbdns vulnerable to cve-2012-1191(ghost domain attack). The package maintainer then follows up with the upstream developers to obtain a patch or a new release which fixes the issue. Once such patch or a new release is available, package maintainer then builds a new version of the Fedora package and submits an update to the Fedora repositories via Bodhi.
It is a fairly straight forward process. But the problems arise when package maintainers either don't understand the issue or are too busy to triage it in time. That is where the Fedora Security Team comes in to help. We work with the upstream developers to obtain the security fixes and help packager maintainers to push these fixes to the Fedora repositories.
Work Flow
- Find a bug (use one of the above links to find an open bug)
- Own the bug
- Determine if the vulnerability is already fixed in Fedora by examining the current version and/or talking with the packager
- Work with upstream to obtain a patch or version where fixed
- Work with packager to get patch or fixed version packaged and pushed as a security update
- Close bug when vulnerability is addressed in Fedora repos.
- Do a little dance.
- GOTO 1
Taking ownership of tracking bugs
Each tracking bug we work on should have a person who owns it for several reasons. It would certainly be inefficient if the work was done twice, and collisions and misunderstandings might occur if two people tried to coordinate fix with upstream and packagers independently. For these reasons, we should indicate the fact we are working on the tracking bug by filling the Whiteboard of the bug with bugzilla login of the owner:
Whiteboard: fst_owner=<owner>,[<owner2>,<owner3>]
As <owner> FAS ID should be used, as it simplifies further management.. For the list of bugzilla logins of Fedora Security Team see the Security Team Roster.
For multiple FST owners FAS IDs should be comma-separated and NOT contain spaces.
| IRC Channel | #fedora-security-team[?] #fedora-security[?] |
|---|---|
| Mailing List | security-team - Security Team mailing list security - General security mailing list (good for questions) |
| Meetings | Schedule and Agenda |
| Current issues | Critical Vulnerabilities - Unowned Important Vulnerabilities - Unowned Moderate Vulnerabilities - Unowned Low Vulnerabilities - Unowned Unknown Vulnerabilities - Unowned Bugs in MODIFIED, ON_DEV, ON_QA states - Unowned |
Hall of Fame
Getting Involved
Getting involved in the FST is easy. First, subscribe to the security-team mailing list. Next, join us in the #fedora-security-team[?] IRC channel. Finally, read the work flow and jump in. If you have questions please asking them on IRC or on the list.