Disclosure policy

How Sealmark handles a probe that finds a real vulnerability in someone else's server. A draft, not final.

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Probes can find real vulnerabilities: a row-level-security bypass, unmasked personal data, a mutation that gets past a read-only filter. The policy is built around the people who maintain the servers, who fix first; where a CVE is warranted, the advisory process requests it.

Anyone can run the CLI on any server on their own machine. That output is a local result, not a public grade. Sealmark publishes a grade for a named third-party server only if the maintainer opted in or the finding has gone through this timeline, and a payload for an unpatched server is never published.

The timeline#

WhenWhat happens
Day 0A check finds a bypass. The cell becomes held and the grade is provisional (*). The result stays private, and the server is never described as leaking while a report is open.
Day 0The finding is reported privately to the maintainer, with the exact rerun command and the evidence. The channel is a GitHub Security Advisory on the server's repository (a private draft); failing that, a private issue or email to a listed contact. If none exists, the report says so and waits.
Within 14 daysIf the maintainer acknowledges the report, the clock below runs with their involvement. If there is no reply, one reminder goes through the same channel. Silence is recorded; it is not treated as consent.
Up to day 90The maintainer can fix the problem and ask for a regrade of the patched version at any time.
At a fix, or at day 90The result is published with the fix status and the grades of both versions. The maintainer's reply is published beside it, as a right-of-reply paragraph on the evidence page.

What "held" means#

On the website, a result for a named server can be held: a critical finding under coordinated disclosure. A held cell is shown as held, not as a grade or a probe payload, until the window closes, and a held critical check is never silently dropped from a displayed grade. This is separate from the CLI's inconclusive verdict, which means the harness could not tell (Troubleshooting).

If you run Sealmark on someone else's server#

A bypass your own run shows in a server you do not maintain is a local result. Give the maintainer the chance to fix it before you share it, in the same spirit as the timeline. See also Safety.