AES Secure Vault is an educational authenticated-encryption project. This policy covers vulnerability reports for the source repository, Python package, CLI, browser UI, release workflow, and published release evidence. This is not a production vault or independently certified cryptographic product.

GitHub Releases are the source of truth for downloadable distributions, SBOM, checksums, local provenance, and GitHub attestations. A GitHub release does not mean the same version was published to PyPI.

Use a private GitHub security advisory:

https://github.com/MDP-Studio/AES-256-GCM-Python-Tool/security/advisories/new

Include the affected version or commit, operating system and Python/browser version, a minimal reproducer, expected versus observed behavior, and impact. Do not include real secrets, client data, production credentials, or another person's encrypted material.

Do not open a public issue with exploit details. If private advisory submission is unavailable, open a minimal public issue asking the maintainers to enable a private reporting route, without including the vulnerability details. Response and remediation are best effort; this project has no paid support or response SLA. Please coordinate disclosure until a fix or clear status is available.

• authentication or integrity bypass in AES-GCM payload handling
• nonce, salt, key-derivation, AAD, or version-binding errors
• plaintext, passphrase, derived-key, or sensitive-path disclosure by the CLI or browser UI
• unsafe parsing, path handling, temporary-file replacement, or streaming behavior that breaks the documented security boundary
• dependency, build, checksum, provenance, or GitHub attestation failures in the project's release workflow
• browser security policy or third-party asset loading that contradicts the documented client-only behavior

• weak user-selected passphrases or loss of a passphrase
• production key management, access control, recovery, rotation, backups, tenancy, audit logging, availability, or support operations
• memory scraping, endpoint compromise, side channels, or zeroization claims outside Python and browser runtime guarantees
• vulnerabilities in GitHub, PyPI, browsers, operating systems, or upstream dependencies that do not arise from this project's integration
• social engineering, denial-of-service against public services, automated scanning, or testing data and systems you do not own or have permission to use

There is no bug bounty. Test only with synthetic data and systems you control.

From a clean clone with GitHub CLI installed, verify the current release:

python tools/verify_published_release.py --tag v1.1.1

The command fails if published files, GitHub asset digests, the flat SHA-256 manifest, tag-bound provenance, or GitHub attestations are absent or mismatched. For another release, replace the tag with the exact published v* tag. The release and scheduled CI workflows do not use the attestation-skip exception.

• No independent cryptographic audit or formal verification has been completed.
• The project is not FIPS, Common Criteria, SOC 2, or ISO 27001 certified.
• It has no KMS/HSM integration, identity layer, key rotation, recovery, or multi-user authorization.
• Python and browser runtimes do not guarantee passphrase or derived-key memory zeroization.
• The browser UI loads argon2-browser from a CDN with Subresource Integrity; offline and supply-chain availability depend on that third-party asset.
• Release checksums, SBOMs, provenance, and attestations improve reviewability. They do not certify the cryptographic design for production secrets.

See docs/production-handoff.md for the controls a real production design would still need.