Debian takes security very seriously. We handle all security problems brought to our attention and ensure that they are corrected within a reasonable timeframe. Many advisories are coordinated with other free software vendors and are published the same day a vulnerability is made public and we also have a Security Audit team that reviews the archive looking for new or unfixed security bugs.
Experience has shown that security through obscurity
does not work. Public
disclosure allows for more rapid and better solutions to security problems. In
that vein, this page addresses Debian's status with respect to various known
security holes, which could potentially affect Debian.
Debian also participates in security standardization efforts: the Debian Security Advisories are CVE-Compatible (review the cross references) and Debian is represented in the Board of the Open Vulnerability Assessment Language project.
In order to receive the latest Debian security advisories, subscribe to the debian-security-announce mailing list.
You can use apt to easily get the latest security updates. This requires a line such as
deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib non-free
in your /etc/apt/sources.list file.
For more information about security issues in Debian, please refer to the Security Team FAQ and a manual called Securing Debian.
These web pages include a condensed archive of security advisories posted to the debian-security-announce list.
The latest Debian security advisories are also available in RDF format. We also offer a second file that includes the first paragraph of the corresponding advisory so you can see in it what the advisory is about.
The older security advisories are also available:
Debian distributions are not vulnerable to all security problems. The Debian Security Tracker collects all information about the vulnerability status of Debian packages, and can be searched by CVE name or by package.
Please read the Security Team FAQ before contacting us, your question may well be answered there already!
The contact information is in the FAQ as well.