Greenplum Database has adopted this security disclosure and response policy to ensure we responsibly handle critical issues.

Security is of the highest importance and all security vulnerabilities or suspected security vulnerabilities should be reported to Greenplum Database privately, to minimize attacks against current users of Greenplum Database before they are fixed. Vulnerabilities will be investigated and patched on the next patch (or minor) release as soon as possible. This information could be kept entirely internal to the project.

If you know of a publicly disclosed security vulnerability for Greenplum Database, please IMMEDIATELY contact the Greenplum Database project team (security@greenplum.org).

IMPORTANT: Do not file public issues on GitHub for security vulnerabilities

To report a vulnerability or a security-related issue, please contact the email address with the details of the vulnerability. The email will be fielded by the Greenplum Database project team. Emails will be addressed promptly, including a detailed plan to investigate the issue and any potential workarounds to perform in the meantime. Do not report non-security-impacting bugs through this channel. Use GitHub issues instead.

Provide a descriptive subject line and in the body of the email include the following information:

• Basic identity information, such as your name and your affiliation or company.
• Detailed steps to reproduce the vulnerability (POC scripts, screenshots, and logs are all helpful to us).
• Description of the effects of the vulnerability on Greenplum Database and the related hardware and software configurations, so that the Greenplum Database project team can reproduce it.
• How the vulnerability affects Greenplum Database usage and an estimation of the attack surface, if there is one.
• List other projects or dependencies that were used in conjunction with Greenplum Database to produce the vulnerability.

• When you think Greenplum Database has a potential security vulnerability.
• When you suspect a potential vulnerability but you are unsure that it impacts Greenplum Database.
• When you know of or suspect a potential vulnerability on another project that is used by Greenplum Database.

The Greenplum Database project team will respond to vulnerability reports as follows:

1. The Greenplum project team will investigate the vulnerability and determine its effects and criticality.
2. If the issue is not deemed to be a vulnerability, the Greenplum project team will follow up with a detailed reason for rejection.
3. The Greenplum project team will initiate a conversation with the reporter promptly.
4. If a vulnerability is acknowledged and the timeline for a fix is determined, the Greenplum project team will work on a plan to communicate with the appropriate community, including identifying mitigating steps that affected users can take to protect themselves until the fix is rolled out.
5. The Greenplum project team will also create a CVSS using the CVSS Calculator. The Greenplum project team makes the final call on the calculated CVSS; it is better to move quickly than making the CVSS perfect. Issues may also be reported to Mitre using this scoring calculator. The CVE will initially be set to private.
6. The Greenplum project team will work on fixing the vulnerability and perform internal testing before preparing to roll out the fix.
7. A public disclosure date is negotiated by the Greenplum Database project team, and the bug submitter. We prefer to fully disclose the bug as soon as possible once a user mitigation or patch is available. It is reasonable to delay disclosure when the bug or the fix is not yet fully understood, or the solution is not well-tested. The timeframe for disclosure is from immediate (especially if it’s already publicly known) to a few weeks. The Greenplum Database project team holds the final say when setting a public disclosure date.
8. Once the fix is confirmed, the Greenplum project team will patch the vulnerability in the next patch or minor release, and backport a patch release into earlier supported releases as necessary. Upon release of the patched version of Greenplum Database, we will follow the Public Disclosure Process.

The Greenplum project team publishes a public advisory to the Greenplum Database community via GitHub. In most cases, additional communication via Slack, Twitter, mailing lists, blog and other channels will assist in educating Greenplum Database users and rolling out the patched release to affected users.

The Greenplum project team will also publish any mitigating steps users can take until the fix can be applied to their Greenplum Database instances.

• Use security@greenplum.org to report security concerns to the Greenplum Database project team, who uses the list to privately discuss security issues and fixes prior to disclosure.

We consider vulnerabilities leading to the compromise of data confidentiality, elevation of privilege, or integrity to be our highest priority concerns. Availability, in particular in areas relating to DoS and resource exhaustion, is also a serious security concern. The Greenplum Database project team takes all vulnerabilities, potential vulnerabilities, and suspected vulnerabilities seriously and will investigate them in an urgent and expeditious manner.

Note that we do not currently consider the default settings for Greenplum Database to be secure-by-default. It is necessary for operators to explicitly configure settings, role based access control, and other resource related features in Greenplum Database to provide a hardened Greenplum Database environment. We will not act on any security disclosure that relates to a lack of safe defaults. Over time, we will work towards improved safe-by-default configuration, taking into account backwards compatibility.