CPS Vulnerability Disclosure Policy

Introduction

Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) places a high importance on the security of our information systems and has published this Vulnerability Disclosure Policy to facilitate the reporting of vulnerabilities in CPS IT systems.

This policy describes how to report vulnerabilities, guidance and sets expectations for engagement.

If you believe you have found a vulnerability on any CPS system, please consider reporting it to us.

We value those who take the time and effort to report security vulnerabilities according to this policy. However, we do not offer monetary rewards for vulnerability disclosures.

How to Report a Vulnerability

If you believe you have found a security vulnerability relating to a CPS system, please submit a vulnerability report to HackerOne.

In your submission, please include details of:

• the website, IP or page where the vulnerability can be observed
• a brief description of the type of vulnerability, for example an ‘XSS vulnerability’
• steps to reproduce. These should be a benign, non-destructive, proof of concept. This helps to ensure that the report can be triaged quickly and accurately. It also reduces the likelihood of duplicate reports, or malicious exploitation of some vulnerabilities, such as sub-domain takeovers.

What to expect

After you have submitted your report, we'll keep you informed of progress via the HackerOne platform, if you have registered for an account.

We will respond to your report within 5 working days and aim to triage your report within 10 working days.

The triage process with determine the priority for remediation, assessed on the impact, severity and exploit complexity. Some vulnerability reports might take some time to address, however we will notify you when the reported vulnerability is remediated and may ask you to confirm the vulnerability has been resolved. You are welcome to enquire on the status but should avoid doing so more than once every 14 days. This allows our teams to focus on the remediation.

Once your vulnerability has been resolved, we respectfully ask that you coordinate with us about any proposed public disclosure.

Guidance

You must NOT:

• break any applicable law or regulation
• use high-intensity invasive or destructive scanning tools to find vulnerabilities
• social engineer, ‘phish’ or physically attack CPS’s staff or infrastructure
• access unnecessary, excessive or significant amounts of data. For example, 2 or 3 examples is enough to demonstrate most vulnerabilities, such as an enumeration or direct object reference vulnerability
• modify data in CPS systems or services
• disrupt the CPS services or systems
• attempt or report any form of denial of service, for example; overwhelming a service with a high volume of requests
• submit reports detailing non-exploitable vulnerabilities, or reports indicating that the services do not fully align with “best practice”, for example missing security headers
• submit reports detailing TLS configuration weaknesses, for example “weak” cipher suite support or the presence of TLS1.0 support
• communicate any vulnerabilities or associated details other than by means described in this policy
• Publicly disclose vulnerabilities prior to reporting the vulnerability under this policy and giving us the chance to remediate in an appropriate timescale.

You must:

• report vulnerabilities promptly
• always comply with data protection rules and must not violate the privacy of any data the CPS holds. You must not, for example, share, redistribute or fail to properly secure data retrieved from the systems or services
• securely delete all data retrieved during your research as soon as it is no longer required or within 1 month of the vulnerability being resolved, whichever occurs first (or as otherwise required by data protection law).

Legalities

This policy is designed to be compatible with common vulnerability disclosure good practice. It does not give you permission to act in any manner that is inconsistent with the law, or which might cause the organisation or partner organisations to be in breach of any legal obligations.

This policy does not provide any form of indemnity by the Authority or any third party for any actions if you are in breach of the law and/or this policy. However, if legal action is initiated by a third party against you and you’ve complied with this policy, we can take steps to make it known that your actions were conducted in compliance with this policy.