diff --git a/governance/SECURITY_AND_OPERATIONAL_EXCELLENCE.md b/governance/SECURITY_AND_OPERATIONAL_EXCELLENCE.md index 3240913..4f330ad 100644 --- a/governance/SECURITY_AND_OPERATIONAL_EXCELLENCE.md +++ b/governance/SECURITY_AND_OPERATIONAL_EXCELLENCE.md @@ -1,90 +1,151 @@ # Security and Operational Excellence Policy -This policy establishes the security and operational excellence requirements for the Connection Coordinator API specification, which enables cross-provider direct connections between cloud service providers. As an openly licensed specification under Apache 2.0, we encourage broad adoption and contribution from the cloud provider community. - -To maintain the integrity, security, and reliability of implementations, we have established this policy to define minimum standards that all specification changes must adhere to. This ensures that while the specification remains open and adaptable, critical security and operational capabilities are preserved across all implementations. +This policy establishes the security and operational excellence requirements for +the Connection Coordinator API specification, which enables cross-provider +direct connections between two network providers. As an openly licensed +specification under Apache 2.0, we encourage broad adoption and contribution +from the cloud provider community. + +To maintain the integrity, security, and reliability of implementations, we have +established this policy to define minimum standards that all specification +changes must adhere to. This ensures that while the specification remains open +and adaptable, critical security and operational capabilities are preserved +across all implementations. The primary goals of this policy are to: -1. Protect customer data traversing cross-provider connections -2. Ensure consistent security practices across all implementing cloud providers -3. Maintain operational reliability for mission-critical workloads -4. Provide clear guidance for contributors proposing specification changes -All proposed changes to the specification must comply with these requirements. The project Maintaining Organizations will evaluate contributions against these standards to preserve the security-first design and operational excellence principles that are foundational to this initiative. Per the Governance Framework, this policy will be reviewed annually to ensure that these tenets are still necessary to achieve the project’s performance and security objectives. +1. Protect customer data traversing cross-provider connections +1. Ensure consistent security practices across all implementing cloud providers +1. Maintain operational reliability for mission-critical workloads +1. Provide clear guidance for contributors proposing specification changes + +All proposed changes to the specification must comply with these requirements. +The project Maintaining Organizations will evaluate contributions against these +standards to preserve the security-first design and operational excellence +principles that are foundational to this initiative. Per the Governance +Framework, this policy will be reviewed annually to ensure that these tenets are +still necessary to achieve the project’s performance and security objectives. ## Core Security Tenets ### Mandatory Encryption -- No changes that make encryption optional or weaken encryption standards will be accepted. -- At least TLS 1.3 must be used for all API communications between providers. -- Connection features that support encryption (like MACsec) must remain mandatory where specified. -### Authentication and Authorization -- All API endpoints must implement authentication mechanisms that follow encryption and security best practices, such as AWS’ Well-architected recommendations and in particular the Security and Operational Excellence Pillars https://aws.amazon.com/architecture/well-architected/ and Google’s Well-Architected Framework: Security, privacy, and compliance pillar https://docs.cloud.google.com/architecture/framework/security. -- The specification must maintain clear provider identity verification. -- The security sections in API paths must not be emptied or weakened. -- Activation key validation must remain a required step in connection establishment. -- Confused Deputy Resolution is required and any changes suggesting its removal from any API will not be accepted. +- No changes that make encryption optional or weaken encryption standards will + be accepted. +- TLS 1.3+ must be used for all API communications between providers. +- Connection features that support encryption (like MACsec) must remain + mandatory where specified. + +### Authentication and Authorization + +- All API endpoints must implement authentication mechanisms that follow + encryption and security best practices, such as AWS’ Well-architected + recommendations and in particular the [Security and Operational Excellence + Pillars](https://aws.amazon.com/architecture/well-architected/) and [Google’s + Well-Architected Framework: Security, privacy, and compliance pillar]( + https://docs.cloud.google.com/architecture/framework/security). +- This specification does not outline a specific authentication and + authorization API. Instead we expect providers to agree on how the best + practices above will be met with their existing platforms. +- The specification must maintain a clear mapping from the chosen + authorization framework to individual providers defined within the + specification. Implementations must prevent unauthorized access to a + provider's resources. +- The security sections in API paths must not be emptied or weakened. +- Activation key validation must remain a required step in connection + establishment. +- Providers are responsible for ensuring API requests (Create, Delete, etc) + affecting customer owned resources (Connections, Features, etc) reflect the + intent of the customer. The specification includes specific mechanisms to + help validate and avoid confused deputy vulnerabilities across providers. ### Connection Integrity -- The activation key mechanism must be preserved to ensure proper connection authorization. -- Key material must remain properly secured and obfuscated as specified. -- No changes that bypass activation key validation will be accepted, unless replaced with an objectively stronger mechanism. + +- Activation keys are one time use by the customer. After the key is used + successfully to activate capacity, this key is no longer valid for creating + any future connections. Note, the activation keys are preserved with the + connection resource for informational purposes only. +- Activation keys must be generated using UUIDv4 to prevent key collisions + across customers. +- Activation key encoding must use BASE64 encoding to ensure deterministic + decoding. +- No changes that bypass activation key validation will be accepted, unless + replaced with an objectively stronger mechanism. ### Secure Channel Management -- The MACsec manager provider role must be maintained to ensure proper encryption key management. -- Channel security features must not be removed to simplify implementation. + +- The MACsec manager provider role must be maintained to ensure proper + encryption key management. +- MACsec keys must be rotated once every 30 days. +- Only one channel within an interconnect can have it's MACsec key's rotated + at any given time. +- Channel security features must not be removed. ## Operational Excellence Tenets ### Service Reliability -- Maintenance event notifications must remain part of the specification. -- Connection status monitoring capabilities must be preserved. -- The specification must maintain support for administrative status controls. + +- Maintenance event notifications must remain part of the specification. +- When performing elective maintenance, a provider is responsible for ensuring + their maintenance does not overlap with an existing maintenance on any other + channels within an interconnect. If through a race condition, two providers + schedule concurrent maintenance, both providers are expected to reschedule. +- Providers may perform maintenance on the same channel simultaneously. This + is important to account for facility downtime. +- Connection status monitoring capabilities must be preserved. ### Resource Management -- Bandwidth allocation mechanisms must be preserved. -- No APIs for bandwidth reservations will be accepted. -- Connection resource cleanup requirements (e.g., 7-day deletion policy) must be maintained. -- Adherence to Activation Key lifetimes is required. -- Capacity planning features must not be removed from the specification. + +- Available capacity must be accurately reported on the interconnect as the + amount of connection capacity that provider can still support provisioning + in that moment. +- Connection resource cleanup requirements (e.g., 7-day deletion policy) must + be maintained. ### Fault Isolation -- Channel diversity requirements must be maintained. -- The obfuscated device ID mechanism must be preserved to ensure proper diversity tracking. -- No changes that would compromise redundancy capabilities will be accepted. + +- Channels must be deployed across diverse routers when contained within a + single interconnect. This diversity must be maintained after provisioning. +- The obfuscated device ID must reflect a unique ID for the routers hosting + the channel. +- No changes that would compromise redundancy capabilities will be accepted. ## Implementation Requirements ### Specification Compliance -- All implementations must support the full API specification. -- Any additional API features are considered optional, but if implemented, must be implemented in full. -- Implementations must maintain all required fields marked as such in the specification. + +- Any additional API features are considered optional, but if implemented, + must be implemented in full. +- Implementations must maintain all required fields marked as such in the + specification. ### Feature Compatibility -- All implementations must support the defined feature types. -- The L3 base feature configuration must be fully implemented. -- No changes that would break interoperability between providers will be accepted. -### Protocol Standards -- BGP session security features must be preserved. -- MTU and VLAN configuration capabilities must be maintained. -- IP subnet management features must be fully implemented. +- All implementations must support the FEATURE_TYPE_L3_BASE feature type. All + other feature types can be considered optional. +- No changes that would break interoperability between providers will be + accepted. +- All features must remain compliant with their relevant RFCs (Example: BGP: + RFC4271). We will not accept configuration constructs that do not adhere to + these specifications. ## Change Management Policy ### Security Impact Assessment -- All proposed changes must include a security impact assessment. -- Changes that reduce security capabilities will be rejected. -- Security considerations must take precedence over implementation simplicity. + +- Any steering committee member can request a security impact assessment for a + specification change. +- Changes that reduce security capabilities will be rejected. +- Security considerations must take precedence over implementation simplicity. ### Backward Compatibility -- Changes must maintain backward compatibility where possible. -- Breaking changes must provide clear migration paths. -- Version management must follow semantic versioning principles. + +- Changes must maintain backward compatibility where possible. +- Breaking changes must provide clear migration paths. +- Version management must follow semantic versioning principles. ### Documentation Requirements -- All changes must include appropriate documentation updates. -- Security implications must be clearly documented. -- Implementation guidance must be provided for security-critical features. +- All changes must include appropriate documentation updates. +- Security implications must be clearly documented. +- Implementation guidance must be provided for security-critical features.