hackingtool is a launcher and guidance layer for authorized security testing. This policy covers vulnerabilities in hackingtool itself — not in the third-party tools it can install or run.

Only the latest released version receives security fixes. Please reproduce on the current master / latest PyPI release before reporting.

Please do not open a public issue for a security bug.

Report privately through GitHub's private advisory flow:

➡ https://github.com/Z4nzu/hackingtool/security/advisories/new

Include:

• what the vulnerability is and where (file / function / command),
• steps to reproduce (a minimal PoC is ideal),
• the impact you think it has, and
• the version / commit you tested.

We aim to acknowledge within 5 business days and to ship a fix or a mitigation plan within 30 days for a confirmed, in-scope report. We'll credit you in the release notes unless you ask us not to.

Vulnerabilities in hackingtool's own code, for example:

• Command / argument injection in the launcher, orchestrator, or any place user or catalog input reaches a subprocess.
• Unsafe downloads — a fetch that isn't pinned + SHA-256 verified, or a path that reintroduces curl | bash.
• Prompt injection in the AI layer (recommend / command / summary / report) that makes the model fabricate, exfiltrate, or drive an action outside its guardrails — see OWASP LLM01: Prompt Injection.
• Privilege / path issues — unexpected sudo, writing outside the user's ~/.hackingtool/ workspace, world-writable files, symlink traversal.
• Catalog integrity — a catalog/overlay entry that ships an unsafe command, an unpinned installer, or a fabricated invocation.

• The third-party tools themselves. A bug in nmap, sqlmap, hashcat, etc. belongs to that project — report it upstream. hackingtool only launches them.
• "This software can be used to attack things." That is the nature of an ethical-hacking toolkit. Misuse by an operator against systems they are not authorized to test is not a vulnerability in hackingtool. See Authorized use.
• Findings that require an already-compromised host or physical access.
• Reports from automated scanners with no demonstrated impact.

Release artifacts are signed with SLSA build provenance and ship a CycloneDX SBOM, both attested via Sigstore. Verify what you install:

# PyPI wheel/sdist and the GitHub release .deb carry build-provenance attestations
gh attestation verify <artifact> --repo Z4nzu/hackingtool

# The SBOM (attached to each GitHub release as hackingtool.cdx.json) is attested too
gh attestation verify dist/hackingtool-*.whl --repo Z4nzu/hackingtool --predicate-type https://cyclonedx.org/bom

PyPI uploads additionally carry PEP 740 digital attestations, generated automatically via Trusted Publishing.

hackingtool is for security testing you are legally authorized to perform — your own systems, an engagement with written scope, a lab, or a CTF. Using it against systems you do not own or have explicit permission to test is illegal and is not a use we support. Every feature assumes authorized-targets-only, no blanket root, and no fabricated results.