Vulnerability Disclosure
Policy Statement
This vulnerability disclosure policy applies to any vulnerabilities you are considering reporting to Social Security Scotland. It is recommended that you read this vulnerability disclosure policy fully before you report a vulnerability and always act in compliance with it.
The time and effort taken by those to report security vulnerabilities according to this policy is valued. However, there are no monetary rewards for vulnerability disclosures.
Reporting
If you believe you have found a security vulnerability, please submit your report using the form below. Your report should provide a benign (i.e. non-destructive) proof of exploitation wherever possible.
In your report please include details of:
- the website, IP address or page where the vulnerability can be observed;
- a brief description of the type of vulnerability;
- steps to reproduce. 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.
What to expect
After submitting your vulnerability report, you will receive an acknowledgement reply usually within 24 working hours of your report being received.
The Social Security Scotland, Cyber Operations team will triage the reported vulnerability, and respond as soon as possible to let you know whether further information is required, whether the vulnerability is in or out of scope, or is a duplicate report. Cyber Operations team will also aim to keep you informed of progress
Priority for bug fixes or mitigations is assessed by looking at the impact severity and exploit complexity. Vulnerability reports might take some time to triage or address.
When the reported vulnerability is resolved, or remediation work is scheduled, Cyber Operations team will notify you. You may be invited to confirm that the solution covers the vulnerability adequately.
Guidance
You MUST NOT:
- break any applicable law or regulations
- access unnecessary, excessive or significant amounts of data
- modify data in Social Security Scotland's systems or services
- use high-intensity invasive or destructive scanning tools to find vulnerabilities
- disrupt the Social Security Scotland’s services or systems
- communicate any vulnerabilities or associated details via methods not described in this policy or with anyone other than Cyber Security and Defence
- social engineer e.g. phishing, or physically attack the Social Security Scotland’s infrastructure
- demand financial compensation in order to disclose any vulnerabilities
You MUST:
Always comply with data protection rules and must not violate the privacy of the Social Security Scotland’s staff, contractors, services or systems. 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 the Social Security Scotland's Information Security Policy. It does not give you permission to act in any manner that is inconsistent with the law, or which might cause Social Security Scotland to be in breach of any of its legal obligations, including but not limited to:
- The Computer Misuse Act 1990
- The General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018
- The Official Secrets Act 1989
Social Security Scotland affirms that it will not seek prosecution of any security researcher who reports any security vulnerability on a Social Security Scotland service or system, where the researcher has acted in good faith and in accordance with this disclosure policy..