Vulnerability Reporting

Address potential vulnerabilities in any aspect of our cloud services

Amazon Web Services takes security very seriously, and investigates all reported vulnerabilities. This page describes our practice for addressing potential vulnerabilities in any aspect of our cloud services.

Reporting Suspected Vulnerabilities

  • Amazon Web Services (AWS): If you would like to report a vulnerability or have a security concern regarding AWS cloud services or open source projects, please submit the information by contacting aws-security@amazon.com. If you wish to protect the contents of your submission, you may use our PGP key.
  • AWS Customer Support Policy for Penetration Testing: AWS customers are welcome to carry out security assessments or penetration tests against their AWS infrastructure without prior approval for listed services. Requesting Authorization for Other Simulated Events should be submitted via the Simulated Events form. For customers operating in the AWS China (Ningxia & Beijing) Region, please use this Simulated Events form.
  • AWS Abuse: If you suspect that AWS resources (such as an EC2 instance or S3 bucket) are being used for suspicious activity, you can report it to the AWS Abuse Team using the Report Amazon AWS abuse form, or by contacting abuse@amazonaws.com.
  • AWS Compliance Information: Access to AWS compliance reports are available via AWS Artifact. If you have additional AWS Compliance-related questions, please contact them via their intake form.
  • Amazon.com (Retail): If you have a security concern with Amazon.com (Retail), Seller Central, Amazon Payments, or other related issues such as suspicious orders, invalid credit card charges, suspicious emails, or vulnerability reporting, please visit our Security for Retail webpage.

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 information you share with AWS as part of this process is kept confidential within AWS. AWS will only share this information with a third party if the vulnerability you report is found to affect a third-party product, in which case we will share this information with the third-party product's author or manufacturer. Otherwise, AWS will only share this information as permitted by you.

AWS will review the submitted report, and assign it a tracking number. We will then respond to you, acknowledging receipt of the report, and outline the next steps in the process.

SLA for Evaluation By AWS

AWS is committed to being responsive and keeping you informed of our progress as we investigate and / or mitigate your reported security concern. You will receive a non-automated response to your initial contact within 24 hours, confirming receipt of your reported vulnerability. You will receive progress updates from AWS at least every five US working days.

Public Notification

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 any information about a potential vulnerability in any public setting until we have researched, responded to, and addressed the reported vulnerability, and informed customers if needed. Also, we respectfully ask that you do not post or share any data belonging to our customers. Addressing a valid reported vulnerability will take time, and the timeline will depend 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.  

Safe Harbor

AWS believes that security research performed in good-faith should be provided safe-harbor. We have adopted Disclose.io’s Core Terms, subject to the conditions below, and we look forward to working with security researchers who share our passion for protecting AWS customers.

Scope

The following activities are out of scope for the AWS Vulnerability Reporting Program. Conducting any of the activities below will result in disqualification from the program permanently.

  1. Targeting assets of AWS customers or non-AWS sites hosted on our infrastructure
  2. Any vulnerability obtained through the compromise of AWS customer or employee accounts
  3. Any Denial of Service (DoS) attack against AWS products or AWS customers
  4. Physical attacks against AWS employees, offices, and data centers
  5. Social engineering of AWS employees, contractors, vendors, or service providers
  6. Knowingly posting, transmitting, uploading, linking to, or sending malware
  7. Pursuing vulnerabilities which send unsolicited bulk messages (spam)

Disclosure Policy

Once the report has been submitted, AWS will work to validate the reported vulnerability. If additional information is required to validate or reproduce the issue, AWS 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 AWS process:

  1. Third-Party Products: Many vendors offer products within the AWS cloud. If the vulnerability is found to affect a third-party product, AWS will notify the owner of the affected technology. AWS 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 originate in an AWS product, this will be shared with you.
  3. Vulnerability Classification: AWS uses 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.
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