The Linux Kernel Firms Up The Process For Dealing With Nasty Hardware Vulnerabilities

With all of the CPU security bugs over the past two years and heightened concerns about hardware vulnerabilities in general, the upstream Linux kernel has been working to create a formal process for dealing with the disclosure process and addressing said issues within the kernel code.

Added originally back to Linux 5.3-rc7 and further improved now for Linux 5.4 is the formal public documentation for the kernel's approach for going about the disclosure process and mitigating the kernel for new vulnerabilities.

That process includes having the Linux kernel hardware security officers made known (Linus Torvalds, Greg Kroah-Hartman, and Thomas Gleixner), the encrypted mailing lists to use for hardware security matters, their handling of disclosures, coordinated release management, and the ambassadors for different ISVs and IHVs.

Those wanting to see the Linux kernel's embargoed hardware issue disclosure process can find the newly-revised text for Linux 5.4 via the documentation tree.