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Vulnerability Disclosure

Submitting a Vulnerability Disclosure

The Selective Service System recognizes that cybersecurity is a public good that is strongest when the public is able to contribute. Below you will find more information on how to find and report vulnerabilities in a legally authorized manner.

Please read our vulnerability disclosure policy below before submitting a vulnerability disclosure.

We accept vulnerability reports via email at security@sss.gov. We do not support PGP-encrypted emails for vulnerability reports. Please include the following information when contacting us about a vulnerability:

  1. Hostname/URL of the vulnerability
  2. Description of the vulnerability and its potential impact
  3. Detailed description of the steps needed to reproduce the vulnerability (links to proof of concept scripts or screenshots are helpful)
  4. Any additional information that would be helpful

Within 3 business days, we will acknowledge that your report has been received. We commit to coordinating with you in an open and timely manner. To the best of our ability, we will confirm the existence of the vulnerability to you and provide transparency regarding the steps we are taking to remediate the issue, including challenges that may delay resolution.

Vulnerability Disclosure Policy

Introduction

Selective Service System is committed to ensuring the security of the American public by protecting their information. This policy is intended to give security researchers clear guidelines for conducting vulnerability discovery activities and to convey our preferences in how to submit discovered vulnerabilities to us.

This policy describes what systems and types of research are covered under this policy, how to send us vulnerability reports, and how long we ask security researchers to wait before publicly disclosing vulnerabilities.

We encourage you to contact us to report potential vulnerabilities in our systems.

Authorization

If you make a good faith effort to comply with this policy during your security research, we will consider your research to be authorized, we will work with you to understand and resolve the issue quickly, and Selective Service System will not recommend or pursue legal action related to your research. Should legal action be initiated by a third party against you for activities that were conducted in accordance with this policy, we will make this authorization known.

Guidelines

Under this policy, “research” means activities in which you:

  • Notify us as soon as possible after you discover a real or potential security issue.
  • Make every effort to avoid privacy violations, degradation of user experience, disruption to production systems, and destruction or manipulation of data.
  • Only use exploits to the extent necessary to confirm a vulnerability’s presence. Do not use an exploit to compromise or exfiltrate data, establish persistent command line access, or use the exploit to pivot to other systems.
  • Provide us a reasonable amount of time to resolve the issue before you disclose it publicly.
  • Do not submit a high volume of low-quality reports.

Once you have established that a vulnerability exists or encounter any sensitive data (including personally identifiable information, financial information, or proprietary information or trade secrets of any party), you must stop your test, notify us immediately, and not disclose this data to anyone else.

Test Methods

The following test methods are not authorized:

  • Network denial of service (DoS or DDoS) tests or other tests that impair access to or damage a system or data.
  • Physical testing (e.g. office access, open doors, tailgating), social engineering (e.g. phishing, vishing), or any other non-technical vulnerability testing.

Scope

This policy applies to the following systems and services:

  • *.sss.gov

Any service not expressly listed above, such as any connected services, are excluded from scope and are not authorized for testing. Additionally, vulnerabilities found in systems from our vendors fall outside of this policy’s scope and should be reported directly to the vendor according to their disclosure policy (if any). If you are not sure whether a system is in scope or not, contact us at security@sss.gov.

Though we develop and maintain other internet-accessible systems or services, we ask that active research and testing only be conducted on the systems and services covered by the scope of this document. If there is a particular system not in scope that you think merits testing, please contact us to discuss it first. We will increase the scope of this policy over time.

Reporting a Vulnerability

Information submitted under this policy will be used for defensive purposes only – to mitigate or remediate vulnerabilities. If your findings include newly discovered vulnerabilities that affect all users of a product or service and not solely Selective Service System, we may share your report with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), where it will be handled under their coordinated vulnerability disclosure process. We will not share your name or contact information without express permission.

We accept vulnerability reports via security@sss.gov. Reports may be submitted anonymously. If you share contact information, we will acknowledge receipt of your report within three business days.

By submitting a vulnerability, you acknowledge that you have no expectation of payment and that you expressly waive any future pay claims against the U.S. Government related to your submission.

Requirements for Submission

In order to help us triage and prioritize submissions, we recommend that your reports:

  • Describe the location the vulnerability was discovered and the potential impact of exploitation.
  • Offer a detailed description of the steps needed to reproduce the vulnerability (proof of concept scripts or screenshots are helpful).
  • Use English, if possible.

What You Can Expect From Us

When you choose to share your contact information with us, we commit to coordinating with you as openly and as quickly as possible.

  • Within three business days, we will acknowledge that your report has been received.
  • To the best of our ability, we will confirm the existence of the vulnerability to you and be as transparent as possible about what steps we are taking during the remediation process, including on issues or challenges that may delay resolution.
  • We will maintain an open dialogue to discuss issues.

Questions

Questions or suggestions regarding this policy must be sent to security@sss.gov. We also invite you to contact us with suggestions for improving this policy.

Policy Change History

February 17, 2021 – Version 1.0 – First Issuance