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Mu Phàrlamaid na h-Alba

Vulnerability disclosure policy

This policy covers how to report a suspected a cyber-security vulnerability to the Scottish Parliament.

Policy statement

This vulnerability disclosure policy applies to any cyber-security vulnerabilities you are considering reporting to the Scottish Parliament regarding our IT systems. Please read this policy fully before you report a vulnerability and always act in compliance with it.

We value those who take the time and effort to report security vulnerabilities according to this policy. However, we do not, under any circumstances, offer monetary rewards, employment opportunities or any other incentives for vulnerability disclosures.

Reporting

If you believe you have found a security vulnerability, please fill out the vulnerability reporting form on the HackerOne platform.

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. For example, "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 will normally respond to and perform initial triage on your report within 10 working days. We’ll also aim to keep you informed of our progress.

Priority for remediation is assessed by looking at the impact, severity and exploit complexity. Vulnerability reports might take some time to triage or address. 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.

We will notify you when the reported vulnerability is remediated, and you may be invited to confirm that the solution addresses the vulnerability adequately.

Guidance

You must not:

  • break any applicable law or regulations
  • generate unnecessary, excessive or significant amounts of data or network traffic
  • modify data in the Scottish Parliament’s systems or services
  • use high-intensity invasive or destructive scanning tools to find vulnerabilities
  • attempt or report any form of denial of service. For example, overwhelming a service with a high volume of requests
  • disrupt the Scottish Parliament’s services or systems
  • communicate any vulnerabilities or associated details other than by means described in the published security.txt
  • social engineer, ‘phish’ or physically attack the Scottish Parliament’s staff systems or infrastructure
  • demand compensation or reward, financial or otherwise, in order to disclose any vulnerabilities

You must:

  • always comply with data-protection rules and must not violate the privacy of the Scottish Parliament’s users, 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 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 Scottish Parliament or partner organisations to be in breach of any of their legal obligations.