Aleš

With news that the “Dirty Frag” Linux exploit embargo had been broken early — leading to all major Linux distros being unprotected from the exploit when it became public — many people are asking: “What is an embargo?” Along with, “How is it possible to have an embargo on an Open Source vulnerability?” Here’s the short-short version: An embargo is, in essence, an agreement to not disclose something publicly until a set time (or until conditions are met). Embargos are incredibly common among news outlets, and press relations teams. “Don’t publish the story until next Monday, after an announcement,” etc.. And they are a key part of how Open Source development handles exploit mitigation (for better or worse). The process is roughly like this: 1) Someone discovers an exploit. 2) Once sufficient information about the exploit is gathered, a core group of developers (working at a range of companies, including Red Hat, SUSE, and others) are then notified. 3) An agreement on an embargo timeline is reached. This is usually simple: X days (or X weeks) until the details of the exploit are published for the public to see. How long the embargo lasts is typically decided by how long it will take the relevant teams to fix the issue, test the fix, and publish the fix… while taking the seriousness of the exploit into consideration. The idea here is to keep details, on how to take advantage of the vulnerability, under wraps… until a fix is available. In other words: minimize the damage an exploit might cause. In the case of “Dirty Frag”, an embargo was decided upon… and that embargo was “broken” (meaning someone published the details) almost immediately.

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