Terms and conditions

The Office of Rail and Road website is maintained for your personal use and viewing. Access and use by you of this site constitutes acceptance by you of these Terms and Conditions that take effect from the date of first use.

We may alter these terms and conditions at any time.

Please remember that the information on these pages can only provide general guidance and should not be read as a substitute for the law.

ORR will always try to ensure that all material on these pages is accurate but we cannot guarantee that it will be free from error at all times.

The names, images and logos identifying the Office of Rail and Road, are proprietary marks of the Office of Rail and Road. Copying our logos and/or any other third party logos accessed via this website is not permitted without prior approval from the relevant copyright owner.

Requests for permission to use our logo should be directed to us. Please contact us. Tell us how and why your wish to use our logo(s). Please include your contact details name, address, telephone number, fax number and email.

Crown Copyright

© Crown copyright, 2023

The material featured on this website is subject to Crown copyright protection unless otherwise indicated. You may use and reuse the information featured on this website (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence.

We encourage users to establish hypertext links to this website.

Any enquiries regarding the use and re-use of this information resource should be sent to email: contact.pct@orr.gov.uk.

Third party content

The permission to reproduce Crown copyright material does not extend to any material on this website which is identified as being the copyright of a third party. Authorisation to reproduce such material would need to be obtained from the copyright holders concerned.

You do not have to ask permission to link directly to pages hosted on this site. We do not object to you linking directly to the information that is hosted on our site. However, we do not permit our pages to be loaded into frames on your site. The Office of Rail and Road pages must load into the user's entire window.

Hyperlinking by us at the Office of Rail and Road

It is our policy to obtain permission to link to other websites. We are not responsible for the content or reliability of the linked websites. Listing should not be taken as endorsement of any kind. We cannot guarantee that these links will work all of the time and we have no control over the availability of linked pages.

We make every effort to check and test material at all stages of production. It is always wise for you to run an anti-virus program on all material downloaded from the Internet. We cannot accept any responsibility for any loss, disruption or damage to your data or your computer system which may occur whilst using material derived from this website.

We respect your right to privacy. Our privacy notice sets out details about the way the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) processes personal data that we collect from and about you and how we may use your information in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 2018.

ORR handles information in accordance with Cabinet Office protective marking guidelines. Protective markings are labels applied to information to show: the correct level of protection the information has; the processes to be followed for handling that information; and the severity of impact should the information be lost or inappropriately transmitted.

Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, members of the public have the right to request access to information held by ORR. ORR believes that it is in the public interest to make information readily accessible and for it to be subject to public scrutiny.

If members of the public have any concerns about the handling of information at ORR, they should contact the Public Correspondence Team who can be contacted as follows:

Public Correspondence Team
Office of Rail and Road
25 Cabot Square
London
E14 4QZ

Telephone: 020 7282 2000
Email: contact.pct@orr.gov.uk

Should you remain dissatisfied with our response, you may ask the director of corporate services to re-investigate the concerns you have raised.

We actively endorse and support working with the research and security practitioner community to improve our online security. 

The ORR welcomes investigative work into security vulnerabilities, carried out by well-intentioned and ethical security researchers. 

We are committed to: 

• investigating and resolving security issues in our platform and services thoroughly 
• working in collaboration with the security community 
• responding promptly and actively 

This policy explains how the ORR works with the security research community to improve our online security. 

Please note that this policy does not provide any form of indemnity for any actions if they are either in breach of the law or of this policy. It does not provide an indemnity from the ORR or any third party.

This disclosure policy applies only to vulnerabilities in ORR products and services under the following conditions: 

• 'in scope' vulnerabilities must be original, previously unreported, and not already discovered by internal procedures
• volumetric vulnerabilities are not in scope - meaning that simply overwhelming a service with a high volume of requests is not in scope 
• reports of non-exploitable vulnerabilities, or reports indicating that our services do not fully align with “best practice”, for example missing security headers, are not in scope 
• TLS configuration weaknesses, for example “weak” cipher suite support or the presence of TLS1.0 support, are not in scope

The policy applies to everyone, including for example ORR staff, third party suppliers and general users of ORR public services.

Unfortunately, due to the ORR’s funding structure, it is not currently possible for us to offer a paid bug bounty programme. We will, however, make efforts to show our appreciation to security researchers who take the time and effort to investigate and report security vulnerabilities to us according to this policy wherever we can.

If you have discovered something you believe to be an in-scope security vulnerability, first you should check the above details for more information about scope, then submit a vulnerability report via the HackerOne platform. 

Your report should provide a benign, non-destructive, proof of exploitation wherever possible. This helps to ensure that the report can be triaged quickly and accurately. It also reduces the likelihood of duplicate reports, or malicious exploitation of some vulnerabilities, such as subdomain takeovers. 

Domain/IP ownership 

If you are not sure whether the ORR is responsible for a service or an IP address where you’ve discovered something, check the Asset section of the vulnerability submission form, which describes in-scope domains.

Alternatively, report issues to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). More information about how to do this is available on the NCSC vulnerability-reporting page.

After submitting your vulnerability report, you will receive an acknowledgement reply usually within 24 working hours of your report being received.

The team will triage the reported vulnerability, and respond as soon as possible to let you know whether further information is required, whether the vulnerability is in or out of scope, or is a duplicate report. If remediation work is necessary, it is assigned to the appropriate ORR teams or supplier(s), supported by the Security & Privacy team.

Priority for bug fixes or mitigations is assessed by looking at the impact severity and exploit complexity. Vulnerability reports might take some time to triage or address. You are welcome to enquire on the status of the process, but should avoid doing so more than once every 14 days. The reason is to allow our teams to focus on the reports as much as possible.

When the reported vulnerability is resolved, or remediation work is scheduled, the Security & Privacy team will notify you, and invite you to confirm that the solution covers the vulnerability adequately.

You are particularly invited to give us feedback on the disclosure handling process, the clarity and quality of the communication relationship, and of course the effectiveness of the vulnerability resolution. This feedback will be used in strict confidence to help us improve our processes for handling reports, developing services, and resolving vulnerabilities.

Security researchers must not:

• access unnecessary amounts of data. For example, 2 or 3 records is enough to demonstrate most vulnerabilities, such as an enumeration or direct object reference vulnerability
• use high-intensity invasive or destructive technical security scanning tools to find vulnerabilities 
• violate the privacy of ORR users, staff, contractors, services or systems. For example by sharing, redistributing and/or not properly securing data retrieved from our systems or services; 
• communicate any vulnerabilities or associated details using methods not described in this policy, or with anyone other than their assigned ORR security contact 
• modify data in ORR systems or services which does not belong to the researcher 
• disrupt ORR services or systems 
• social engineer, ‘phish’ or physically attack ORR staff or infrastructure 
• disclose any vulnerabilities in ORR systems or services to 3rd parties or the public, prior to the ORR confirming that those vulnerabilities have been mitigated or rectified 
• require financial compensation in order to disclose any vulnerabilities outside of a declared bug bounty reward structure (such as holding an organisation to ransom) 

The last point, about not notifying vulnerabilities to 3rd parties (a party other than yourself and the ORR) is not intended to stop you notifying a vulnerability to 3rd parties for whom the vulnerability is directly relevant. 

An example would be where the vulnerability being reported is in a software library or framework. The point is that details of the specific vulnerability as it applies to the ORR must not be referenced in such reports. For clarification about whether or when you can notify 3rd parties, contact the Security Team. 

We ask you to delete securely any and all data retrieved during your research as soon as it is no longer required or within 1 month of the vulnerability being resolved, whichever occurs first. 

If at any time you are unsure if your intended or actual actions are acceptable, contact the Security Team for guidance.

This policy is designed to be compatible with common good practice among well-intentioned security researchers. 

It does not give you permission to act in any manner that is inconsistent with the law, or which might cause the ORR to be in breach of any of its legal obligations, including but not limited to (as updated from time to time): 

• The Computer Misuse Act (1990)
• The General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018
• The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988)
• The Official Secrets Act (1989) 

The ORR affirms that it will not seek prosecution of any security researcher who reports any security vulnerability on an ORR service or system, where the researcher has acted in good faith and in accordance with this disclosure policy.

If you wish to provide feedback or suggestions on this policy, contact the Security Team. The policy will naturally evolve over time; your input is welcome and will be valued to ensure that the policy remains clear, complete, and relevant.