The Nephoran Intent Operator implements comprehensive security controls and follows industry best practices for cloud-native applications in telecommunications environments. This document outlines our security policies, vulnerability management processes, and security implementation guidelines.

Security updates are provided for the following versions:

1. Never Trust, Always Verify: All communications are authenticated and authorized
2. Least Privilege Access: Components operate with minimal required permissions
3. Defense in Depth: Multiple layers of security controls
4. Assume Breach: Design assumes compromise and limits blast radius
5. Verify Explicitly: Continuous validation of security posture

• mTLS: Mutual TLS for all inter-service communication
• Network Policies: Kubernetes NetworkPolicies for micro-segmentation
• Service Mesh: Istio integration for enhanced security
• Ingress Controls: WAF and rate limiting at ingress

• RBAC: Fine-grained Kubernetes RBAC policies
• OAuth2/OIDC: Standards-based authentication
• Service Accounts: Dedicated accounts with minimal permissions
• API Keys: Rotated regularly with secure storage

• Encryption at Rest: All persistent data encrypted
• Encryption in Transit: TLS 1.3 minimum for all communications
• Key Management: Integration with KMS solutions
• Data Classification: Sensitive data identified and protected

• Input Validation: Comprehensive input sanitization
• Output Encoding: Prevention of injection attacks
• Security Headers: Proper HTTP security headers
• Error Handling: Secure error messages without information leakage

DO NOT report security vulnerabilities through public GitHub issues.

Instead, please report them through one of these channels:

1. Email: [email protected]
2. Security Advisory: Create a private security advisory
3. Bug Bounty: Details at https://nephoran.io/security/bug-bounty

Include the following information:

• Type of vulnerability
• Full paths of affected source files
• Location of affected code (tag/branch/commit)
• Step-by-step reproduction instructions
• Proof-of-concept or exploit code (if possible)
• Impact assessment and potential consequences

• Initial Response: Within 24 hours
• Vulnerability Confirmation: Within 72 hours
• Patch Development: Based on severity
  • Critical: 24-48 hours
  • High: 3-5 days
  • Medium: 7-14 days
  • Low: 30 days
• Public Disclosure: Coordinated after patch release

• Automated Scanning: Daily vulnerability scans with Dependabot
• SBOM Generation: Software Bill of Materials for all releases
• License Compliance: Automated license checking
• Dependency Pinning: Exact versions in production

• Reproducible Builds: Deterministic build process with build attestations
• Build Provenance: SLSA Level 4 compliance with full supply chain transparency
• Artifact Signing: Cosign keyless signatures for all artifacts with Rekor transparency log
• Registry Security: Private registry with continuous vulnerability scanning and policy enforcement
• SBOM Generation: Automatic SPDX and CycloneDX SBOM for every release
• Dependency Verification: All dependencies verified with checksums and signatures

• Base Images: Hardened distroless images with zero CVEs policy
• Vulnerability Scanning: Multi-scanner approach (Trivy, Grype, Snyk) with fail-fast on critical
• Image Signing: Keyless Cosign signing with OIDC identity verification
• Registry Scanning: Real-time scanning with automatic quarantine of vulnerable images
• Admission Control: Policy-based admission with OPA/Gatekeeper
• Image Attestations: SBOM, vulnerability scan, and provenance attestations

• Security Policies: Pod Security Standards enforced
• Runtime Protection: Falco for runtime threat detection
• Resource Limits: CPU/Memory limits enforced
• Capabilities: Minimal Linux capabilities

• SAST Tools: GoSec, Semgrep, CodeQL with custom security rules
• Secret Detection: TruffleHog, Gitleaks, detect-secrets with pre-commit hooks
• Dependency Checking: Nancy, Snyk, OSV-Scanner, Dependabot
• Code Review: Mandatory peer review with security checklist
• AI Security Review: LLM-powered security analysis for complex code paths
• License Compliance: Automated license scanning and compliance checks

• DAST Tools: OWASP ZAP integration
• Fuzzing: Go fuzzing for critical paths
• Penetration Testing: Annual third-party testing
• Chaos Engineering: Regular resilience testing

• O-RAN Security: WG11 specifications compliance
• NIST Cybersecurity Framework: Full implementation
• CIS Benchmarks: Kubernetes and container compliance
• OWASP Top 10: Protection against top vulnerabilities
• ISO 27001: Information security management
• SOC 2 Type II: Security controls audit

• GDPR: Data privacy and protection
• CCPA: California privacy rights
• HIPAA: Healthcare data protection (where applicable)
• PCI DSS: Payment card data security (where applicable)

• Threat modeling completed
• Security requirements defined
• Secure coding guidelines followed
• Input validation implemented
• Authentication/authorization designed
• Encryption requirements met
• Logging and monitoring planned
• Error handling reviewed

• Static security analysis (SAST)
• Dynamic security analysis (DAST)
• Dependency vulnerability scanning
• Container security scanning
• Secret detection scanning
• Security unit tests
• Penetration testing (for releases)
• Security review completed

• Security configurations reviewed
• Network policies applied
• RBAC policies configured
• Secrets management verified
• TLS certificates valid
• Monitoring and alerting active
• Incident response plan ready
• Backup and recovery tested

• Security patches applied
• Vulnerabilities monitored
• Logs reviewed regularly
• Incidents tracked and resolved
• Access reviews conducted
• Compliance audits performed
• Security training completed
• Documentation updated

# Install security tools
make -C security install-tools

# Run comprehensive security scan
make -C security security-scan

# Generate SBOM
make -C security generate-sbom

# Check compliance
make -C security compliance-check

All pull requests must pass:

1. Secret detection scan
2. SAST analysis
3. Dependency vulnerability check
4. License compliance check
5. Container security scan

Developers should run security checks before committing:

# Pre-commit security checks
./security/scripts/pre-commit-security.sh

# Full security validation
./security/scripts/security-scan.sh

• Security Lead: Responsible for coordination
• Engineering Lead: Technical response
• Communications: External communications
• Legal/Compliance: Regulatory requirements

1. Detection: Identify and validate the incident
2. Containment: Limit the scope and impact
3. Eradication: Remove the threat
4. Recovery: Restore normal operations
5. Lessons Learned: Post-incident review

• Security Team: [email protected]
• 24/7 Hotline: +1-XXX-XXX-XXXX
• PagerDuty: nephoran-security

All team members must complete:

1. Secure coding practices
2. OWASP Top 10 awareness
3. Container security basics
4. Kubernetes security fundamentals
5. Incident response procedures

• OWASP Security Guidelines
• NIST Cybersecurity Framework
• CIS Benchmarks
• O-RAN Security Specifications
• Kubernetes Security Best Practices

1. Pre-Commit Phase

   • Secret detection
   • Code formatting
   • License checking

2. Build Phase

   • SAST scanning
   • Dependency scanning
   • Container scanning
   • SBOM generation

3. Deploy Phase

   • Image signing
   • Policy validation
   • Runtime protection
   • Compliance checks

• MTTD (Mean Time to Detect): < 1 hour
• MTTR (Mean Time to Respond): < 4 hours
• Vulnerability Coverage: > 95%
• False Positive Rate: < 5%
• Patch Compliance: > 98%

This security policy is reviewed monthly and updated as needed. Last review: 2025-01-29 Next scheduled review: 2025-02-28