Cardano Foundation
The Cardano Foundation is tasked with advancing the public digital infrastructure Cardano, working to anchor it as a utility for financial and social systems.
PoC required
Rewards by Threat Level
Reward Payment Terms
Payouts are handled by the Cardano Foundation team directly and are denominated in USD. However, payments are done in fiat USD via Bank Transfer. This bug bounty program will also have a hard cap of USD 100,000. In the event that multiple bug reports are submitted that exceed this amount, the rewards will be provided on a first come first served basis. All remaining valid reports will have their rewards considered on a case by case basis.
Program Overview
The Cardano Foundation is tasked with advancing the public digital infrastructure Cardano, working to anchor it as a utility for financial and social systems. We develop infrastructure tooling—including where there may not be an immediate commercial use case—plus strengthen operational resilience, and drive diversity of on-infrastructure use cases as well as the development of sound and representative governance.
For more information about The Cardano Foundation, please visit https://cardanofoundation.org/.
The Cardano Foundation provides rewards in fiat USD. For more details about the payment process, please view the Rewards by Threat Level section further below.
Responsible Publication
The Cardano Foundation adheres to category 3 - Approval Required. This Policy determines what information researchers are allowed to make public from their submitted bug reports. For more information about the category selected, please refer to our Responsible Publication page.
Primacy of Impact vs Primacy of Rules
The Cardano Foundation adheres to the Primacy of Rules, which means that the whole bug bounty program is run strictly under the terms and conditions stated within this page.
Proof of Concept (PoC) Requirements
A PoC, demonstrating the bug's impact, is required for this program and has to comply with the Immunefi PoC Guidelines and Rules.
Known Issue Assurance
The Cardano Foundation commits to providing Known Issue Assurance to bug submissions through their program. This means that The Cardano Foundation will either disclose known issues publicly, or at the very least, privately via a self-reported bug submission.
In a potential scenario of a mediation, this allows for a more objective and streamlined process, in order to prove that an issue is known. Otherwise, assuming the bug report is valid, it would result in the report being considered as in-scope, and due a reward.
Public Disclosure of Known Issues
Bug reports covering previously-discovered bugs (listed below) are not eligible for a reward within this program. This includes known issues that the project is aware of but has consciously decided not to “fix”, necessary code changes, or any implemented operational mitigating procedures that can lessen potential risk.
- https://github.com/cardano-foundation/cf-explorer-api
- https://github.com/cardano-foundation/cf-explorer-authentication
- https://github.com/cardano-foundation/cf-explorer-frontend
Feasibility Limitations
The project may be receiving reports that are valid (the bug and attack vector are real) and cite assets and impacts that are in scope, but there may be obstacles or barriers to executing the attack in the real world. In other words, there is a question about how feasible the attack really is. Conversely, there may also be mitigation measures that projects can take to prevent the impact of the bug, which are not feasible or would require unconventional action and hence, should not be used as reasons for downgrading a bug's severity.
Therefore, Immunefi has developed a set of feasibility limitation standards which by default states what security researchers, as well as projects, can or cannot cite when reviewing a bug report.
KYC not required
No KYC information is required for payout processing.
Prohibited Activities
- Any testing on mainnet or public testnet deployed code; all testing should be done on local-forks of either public testnet or mainnet
- Any testing with pricing oracles or third-party smart contracts
- Attempting phishing or other social engineering attacks against our employees and/or customers
- Any testing with third-party systems and applications (e.g. browser extensions) as well as websites (e.g. SSO providers, advertising networks)
- Any denial of service attacks that are executed against project assets
- Automated testing of services that generates significant amounts of traffic
- Public disclosure of an unpatched vulnerability in an embargoed bounty
- Any other actions prohibited by the Immunefi Rules
Feasibility Limitations
The project may be receiving reports that are valid (the bug and attack vector are real) and cite assets and impacts that are in scope, but there may be obstacles or barriers to executing the attack in the real world. In other words, there is a question about how feasible the attack really is. Conversely, there may also be mitigation measures that projects can take to prevent the impact of the bug, which are not feasible or would require unconventional action and hence, should not be used as reasons for downgrading a bug's severity. Therefore, Immunefi has developed a set of feasibility limitation standards which by default states what security researchers, as well as projects, can or cannot cite when reviewing a bug report.