GNU C Library as its own CNA?
Siddhesh Poyarekar
siddhesh@gotplt.org
Tue Sep 12 11:40:06 GMT 2023
On 2023-09-11 08:47, Carlos O'Donell wrote:
> On 7/28/23 11:56, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
>> We have, for many years, been using distribution security teams to
>> help with CVE triage and assignment. It has worked for the most
>> part, but it's not uncommon to have CVEs assigned by organizations
>> that don't always have a proper understanding of the security impact
>> of bugs in glibc despite us having a clearly documented Security
>> Process[1]; a recent example is CVE-2023-0687[2], which we had to
>> jump through many hoops just to get it disputed and get the record
>> straight on the bug.
>>
>> If the GNU C Library had it's own CNA, all vulnerabilities reported
>> against CVE would have to come to this CNA for triage, thus making
>> sure that security issues in glibc get correctly assessed. As root
>> CNA, Red Hat is open to sponsoring FOSS organizations[3] that are
>> willing to have their own CNA, subject to certain conditions (all
>> organizational) being met. Is this something that would interest the
>> community?
>>
>> I am volunteering to take primary responsibility in helping set
>> things up, including coordination with the CTI (for whatever
>> additional infrastructure this would need), coordination with Red Hat
>> and helping build consensus on what the organizational structure
>> should look like.
>
> Please include me in the list of volunteers.
>
> I think this is a great step forward in reducing downstream CVE work by ensuring
> we have a good upstream review process.
>
>> At the outset, we'll need to have broad agreement on the following:
>>
>> 1. How should users submit issues? We would need an independent,
>> private mailing list, possibly one that can also do PGP for users to
>> report security issues.
>
> Start small. Private mailing list works. I expect we will have to publish and
> accept PGP signed email to all volunteers. So we'll need to publish volunteer
> keys, and have a process for withdrawing volunteer keys.
>
>> 2. Identify a group of people who ought to be on that list. A
>> starting group could be a cross section of named maintainers from
>> various distributions and FSF stewards but we probably need a way to
>> make sure that the group is inclusive without being too broad.
>
> Count me in.
>
>> 3. A formal representation to the root CNA, i.e. Red Hat. We would
>> need a group of volunteers that would be willing to step in as
>> signees for this. I'm in, but I can't do it alone and would need
>> more volunteers; it could perhaps be the same set of people who would
>> be part of the initial security team in (2).
>
> I'm in.
Thanks, anybody else willing to volunteer?
Thanks,
Sid
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