Department Of Education Vulnerability Disclosure

Protect the U.S. Department of Education by reporting security vulnerabilities through our Vulnerability Disclosure Program (VDP). Submit findings securely and support a transparent, proactive security process.

Overview

This Responsible Disclosure Program (the “Program”) page is for security researchers interested in reporting application security vulnerabilities. This is intended for application security vulnerabilities only.

Vulnerabilities submitted to the Program through the form provided will be reviewed by Synack, Inc. (“Synack”). Submissions will be reviewed to confirm they are within the Program scope and a valid security issue. If you submit a valid vulnerability, you will be notified after a fix has been issued, and you will have the opportunity to be added to the Acknowledgments page and to disclose the vulnerability. The submission review and validation process is managed exclusively by Synack through their platform and you must follow the Guidelines, Rules of Engagement, and Scope set forth below to participate. All submissions and queries regarding the Program should be submitted through the Submission Form.

Guidelines

In submitting a request, you agree to:

• Accept and adhere to the Terms of Use.
• Work directly with Synack on vulnerability submissions.
• Provide detailed description of a proof of concept to detail reproduction of vulnerabilities.
• Adhere to these Guidelines and the Rules of Engagement and Scope, and do not engage in disruptive testing like DoS or any action that could impact the confidentiality, integrity or availability of information and systems.
• Do not engage in social engineering or phishing of customers or employees.
• Do not request compensation for time and materials or vulnerabilities discovered.

Scope

All internet-accessible, public facing, systems or services of the Department are covered within the scope of the VDP.

Rules of Engagement

• No Denial of Service testing
• No Physical or Social Engineering
• No testing of Third-party Services
• No uploading of any vulnerability or client-related content to third-party utilities (e.g. Github, DropBox, YouTube)
• All attack payload data must use professional language
• If able to gain access to a system, accounts, users, or user data, stop at point of recognition and report. Do not dive deeper to determine how much more is accessible.

Out of Scope – Low Impact Vulnerabilities

The following vulnerabilities are considered too low of an impact to the client and would be marked as Out of Scope if submitted:

• Google Maps API Keys
• Account/e-mail enumeration using brute-force attacks
  • Valid user account/email enumeration not requiring brute-force will be considered
• Any low impact issues related to session management (i.e. concurrent sessions, session expiration, password reset/change log out, etc.)
• Bypassing content restrictions in uploading a file without proving the file was received
• Clickjacking/UI redressing
• Client-side application/browser autocomplete or saved password/credentials
• Descriptive or verbose error pages without proof of exploitability or obtaining sensitive information
• Directory structure enumeration (unless the fact reveals exceptionally useful information)
• Incomplete or missing SPF/DMARC/DKIM records
• Issues related to password/credential strength, length, lockouts, or lack of brute-force/rate-limiting protections
  • Account compromises (especially admin) as a result of these issues will likely be considered VALID
• Lack of SSL or Mixed content
  • Leaking Session Cookies, User Credentials, or other sensitive data will be reviewed on a case by case basis
  • If leaking of sensitive data requires MiTM positioning to exploit, it will be considered out of scope
• Login/Logout/Unauthenticated/Low-impact CSRF
  • CSRF Vulnerabilities may be acceptable if they are of higher impact. Examples of low impact CSRF include: Add/Delete from Cart, Add/remove wishlist/favorites, Nonsevere preference options, etc.
• Low impact Information disclosures (including Software version disclosure)
• Missing Cookie flags
• Missing/Enabled HTTP Headers/Methods which do not lead directly to a security vulnerability
• Reflected file download attacks (RFD)
• Self-exploitation (i.e. password reset links or cookie reuse)
• SSL/TLS best practices that do not contain a fully functional proof of concept
• URL/Open Redirection
• Use of a known-vulnerable library which leads to a low-impact vulnerability (i.e. jQuery outdated version leads to low impact XSS)
• Valid bugs or best practice issues that are not directly related to the security posture of the client
• Vulnerabilities affecting users of outdated browsers, plugins or platforms
• Vulnerabilities that allow for the injection of arbitrary text without allowing for hyperlinks, HTML, or JavaScript code to be injected
• Vulnerabilities that require the user/victim to perform extremely unlikely actions (i.e. Self-XSS)
  • Self-XSS for a Persistent/Stored XSS will be considered. Please review the Self-XSS article for more information.
  • Any type of XSS that requires a victim to press an unlikely key combination is NOT in scope (i.e. alt+shift+x for payload execution)

Additional specific vulnerability types considered out of scope due to low impact:

• IIS Tilde File and Directory Disclosure
• SSH Username Enumeration
• WordPress Username Enumeration
• SSL Weak Ciphers/ POODLE / Heartbleed
• CSV Injection
• PHP Info
• Server-Status if it does not reveal sensitive information
• Snoop Info Disclosures

Company Name

U.S. Department Of Education

Website

https://www.ed.gov

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By submitting a vulnerability to our responsible disclosure program, you agree to the Terms of Use.