Re: [PATCH 2/2] Documentation: security-bugs.rst: clarify CVE handling

Kees Cook
2023-07-03T18:35:42Z

On Mon, Jul 03, 2023 at 05:00:15PM +0200, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 03, 2023 at 06:08:00AM +0200, Willy Tarreau wrote:
> > The security team does not assign CVEs, nor do we require them for
> > reports or fixes, as this can needlessly complicate the process and may
> > delay the bug handling. If a reporter wishes to have a CVE identifier
> > assigned, they should find one by themselves, for example by contacting
> > MITRE directly. However under no circumstances will a patch inclusion
> > be delayed to wait for a CVE identifier to arrive.
> >
> > This puts the responsibility for finding one in time on the reporter
> > depending on what they expect, and if they want it in the commit
> > message, they'd rather have one before reporting the problem.
>
> Oh, nice wording, let me steal that! :)

Yeah, this is good. The last sentence is a little hard to parse, so how
about this, with a little more rationale expansion:

However under no circumstances will patch publication be delayed for
CVE identifier assignment. Getting fixes landed takes precedence; the
CVE database entry will already reference the commit, so there is no loss
of information if the CVE is assigned later.

-Kees

--
Kees Cook