• Security Services
• Use Cases
• Compliance
• Data Protection
• Blog
• Partners
• Resources

Reporting Suspected Vulnerabilities

So that we may more effectively respond to your report, please provide any supporting material (proof-of-concept code, tool output, etc.) that would be useful in helping us understand the nature and severity of the vulnerability.

The Amazon CNA will issue CVEs that support customers
in addressing valid security vulnerabilities within the following classes:

• AWS Services delivered by AWS and publicly available to customers. (e.g. Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS).
• Amazon Services delivered by Amazon and publicly available to customers. (e.g. Amazon.com Seller API Service).
• Open-source software within a GitHub organization managed by Amazon or AWS.
• Client software published by Amazon or AWS and available for download from a website or download location owned and operated by us (e.g. Amazon Appstore SDK, Amazon Input SDK, Amazon Kindle App, Amazon MShop App, Amazon WorkSpaces client).
• Devices manufactured by Amazon or AWS and available to customers for purchase and use (e.g. Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Echo devices, Amazon Kindle, AWS Outpost).

Additionally, all of the requirements below must be met:

• Customer Impacting: The issue must exist within an Amazon or AWS-owned class which is publicly available to customers; AND
• Customer Agency: Remediation of supported or EOL/EOS product issues requires customer action, including making a risk-based decision on handling the remediation (OR customers need to assess possible impact) OR when a valid security vulnerability will become public (OR has the potential of becoming public); AND
• CVSS score: 4.0 (MEDIUM) or higher.

Services, software, or hardware issues that are deemed not a vulnerability include but are not limited to:

• Non-default configuration or changes made using valid credentials that were correctly authorized
• Targeting assets of Amazon or AWS customers (or non-AWS sites hosted on AWS infrastructure)
• Any vulnerability obtained through the compromise of Amazon or AWS customer or employee accounts
• Any Denial of Service (DoS) attack against Amazon or AWS products (or Amazon or AWS customers)
• Physical attacks against Amazon or AWS employees, offices, and data centers
• Social engineering of Amazon or AWS employees, contractors, vendors, or service providers
• Knowingly posting, transmitting, uploading, linking to, or sending malware
• Pursuing vulnerabilities which send unsolicited bulk messages (spam)

AWS is committed to being responsive and keeping you informed of our progress. You will receive a non-automated response confirming receipt of your initial report within 24 hours, timely updates, and monthly check-ins throughout the engagement. You may request updates at any time, and we welcome dialogue that clarifies any concern or disclosure coordination.

The activities deemed not a vulnerability above are also out of scope for the AWS Vulnerability Disclosure Program. Conducting any of the activities mentioned above will result in disqualification from the program permanently.

If applicable, AWS will coordinate public notification of any validated vulnerability with you. Where possible, we prefer that our respective public disclosures be posted simultaneously.

In order to protect our customers, AWS requests that you not post or share information about a potential vulnerability in any public setting until we have addressed the reported vulnerability and informed customers if necessary. Also, we respectfully ask that you do not post or share any data belonging to our customers. Please note, the time required to mitigate a vulnerability is dependent upon the severity of the vulnerability and the affected systems.

AWS makes public notifications in the form of Security Bulletins, which are posted in the AWS Security website. Individuals, companies, and security teams typically post their advisories on their own websites and in other forums and when relevant, we will include links to those third-party resources in AWS Security Bulletins.

All vulnerability research must be conducted in good faith.  This means:

• You will follow this policy, and any other relevant agreements you have with us
•  Your research must consist exclusively of good faith testing, investigation, or correction of a security flaw, with the primary goal of promoting the safety of the class of devices, machines, or online services to which any accessed computers belong
• You will not violate AWS customers’ security and privacy, and will not harm individuals or the public
• Your research will proceed only as far as necessary to demonstrate or clarify the security issue, and no further
• If a vulnerability provides unintended access to data, you will limit the amount of data you access to the minimum required for effectively demonstrating a proof of concept.  Stop the research and submit a report immediately if you encounter any user data during testing, such as personal information, financial information, or proprietary information
• You will report the findings of your research to us within 72 hours of determining a potential security concern via our Vulnerability Disclosure Program on HackerOne  or by emailing [email protected] (PGP Key)
• You will provide us with a reasonable amount of time to resolve the issue before you disclose it publicly
• You may only interact with accounts you own or with explicit written permission from AWS or the account owner
• No stunt hacking
• No extortion or harassment

We consider Good Faith Security Research to be authorized activity that is protected from adversarial legal action by us.  This means that, for activity conducted while this program is active, we:

• Will not bring legal action against you or report you for Good Faith Security Research, including for bypassing technological measures we use to protect the applications in scope; and,
• Will take steps to make known that you conducted Good Faith Security Research if someone else brings legal action against you.

Note that for the purposes of safe harbor, AWS does NOT waive a right to pursue remedies against security research activities targeting other AWS customers’ resources, operations, or end users, including but not limited to:

• unauthorized cross-customer environment access
• manipulation, monitoring/collection
• spoofing
• social engineering, including but not limited to phishing
• impersonating AWS, AWS employees, AWS services, or AWS products
• impersonating AWS or customer marketplace offerings (eg. AMIs, container images, templates, models, etc)
• impersonating any other company, their employees, services, products or offerings
• provisioning resources to mimic AWS infrastructure or AWS customer resources
• Denial of Service, Distributed Denial of Service, simulated DoS, simulated DDoS
• port, protocol, or request flooding
• any type of brute forcing
• IP or Resource cycling/churning
• DNS hijacking, Pharming, or zone walking via Amazon Route 53
• stunt hacking

An explicit authorization or permission granted by any single AWS customer for the purposes of their continuous vulnerability scanning, penetration testing, security configuration validation, or vulnerability rewards program (VRP) cannot exceed the bounds of the specific customers’ accounts and resources and does NOT grant authorization for abusive activities via any AWS service.

Individuals or companies conducting security research are strongly encouraged to contact AWS Security (via HackerOne or by emailing [email protected] (PGP Key)) to review their planned methodology and seek guidance or operational support prior to any activities.  Security research that is not conducted in good faith may subject your AWS account(s) to active response measures, such as offending resource isolation, account suspension, resource / account termination, legal remedies, or relevant law enforcement referral.

Keep in mind that we are not able to authorize security research on third-party infrastructure, and a third party is not bound by this safe harbor statement.

Once the report has been submitted, we will work to validate the reported vulnerability. If additional information is required to validate or reproduce the issue, we will work with you to obtain it. When the initial investigation is complete, results will be delivered to you along with a plan for resolution and discussion of public disclosure.

A few things to note about the process:

1. Third-Party Products: If the vulnerability is found to affect a third-party product, we will notify the owner of the affected technology. We will continue to coordinate between you and the third party. Your identity will not be disclosed to the third party without your permission.

2. Confirmation of Non-Vulnerabilities: If the issue cannot be validated, or is not found to be in scope, this will be shared with you.

3. Vulnerability Classification: We use version 3.1 of the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) to evaluate potential vulnerabilities. The resulting score helps quantify the severity of the issue and to prioritize our response. For more information on CVSS, please reference the NVD site.

In participating in our vulnerability disclosure program in good faith, we ask that you:

• Play by the rules, including following this policy and any other relevant agreements. If there is any inconsistency between this policy and any other applicable terms, the terms of this policy will prevail;

• Report any vulnerability you’ve discovered promptly;
  Avoid violating the privacy of others, disrupting our systems, destroying data, and/or harming user experience;

• Use only the previously mentioned channels to discuss vulnerability information with us;

• Provide us a reasonable amount of time from the initial report to resolve the issue before you disclose it publicly;

• Perform testing only on in-scope systems, and respect systems and activities which are out-of-scope;

• If a vulnerability provides unintended access to data: Limit the amount of data you access to the minimum required for effectively demonstrating a proof-of-concept; and cease testing and submit a report immediately if you encounter any user data during testing, such as Personally Identifiable Information (PII), Personal Healthcare Information (PHI), credit card data, or proprietary information;

• Only interact with test accounts you own or with explicit permission from the account holder; and

• Do not engage in extortion.

Have Questions? Connect with AWS Support

Contact Us

Exploring security roles?

Apply today

Want AWS Security updates?

Follow us on Twitter