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Current Security Addendum

Review the latest updates to Teleport's Security Addendum. Updated September 6, 2024.

Our prior Security Addendum can be found here.

Last Updated: September 6, 2024

This Gravitational Security Addendum (“Addendum”) is incorporated into and made a part of under one or more separate agreement(s) executed between Gravitational, Inc. (“Gravitational” or “Provider”) and Customer covering Customer’s use of the Services (each an “Agreement”).

1. Purpose

This Addendum describes Gravitational’s security program, security certifications, and technical and organizational security controls (together, the “Information Security Program”) to protect (a) Customer Data from unauthorized use, access, disclosure, or theft and (b) the Services. As security threats change, Gravitational continues to update the Information Security Program and strategy to help protect Customer Data and the Services. As such, Gravitational reserves the right to update this Addendum from time to time; provided, however, any update will not materially reduce the overall protections set forth in this Addendum. The then-current terms of this Addendum are available at https://goteleport.com/legal/security-addendum. This Addendum does not apply to any Services that are identified as alpha, beta, not generally available, limited release, developer preview, or any similar Services offered by Gravitational.

2. Definitions

Capitalized terms used in this Addendum without a definition will have the meanings given to them in the Agreement.

Solely for the purposes of this Addendum and the Information Security Program, Provider defines “Customer Data” as data or information originated by Customer that Customer submits or provides in the course of using the Services. For the avoidance of doubt, Customer Data does not include Usage Data.

3. Security Organization and Program

Gravitational maintains a risk-based assessment security program. The framework for the Information Security Program includes administrative, organizational, technical, and physical safeguards reasonably designed to protect the Services and confidentiality, integrity, and availability of Customer Data. The Information Security Program is intended to be appropriate to the nature of the Services and the size and complexity of Gravitational’s business operations. Gravitational has a separate and dedicated Information Security team that manages the Information Security Program. Gravitational’s security framework is aligned to established information security industry standards, including ISO/IEC 27001. Security is managed at the highest levels of the company, with Gravitational’s CTO acting CISO meeting with executive management regularly to discuss issues and coordinate company-wide security initiatives. Information security policies and standards are reviewed and approved by management at least annually and are made available to all Gravitational employees for their reference.

4. Confidentiality

Gravitational has controls in place to maintain the confidentiality of Customer Data in accordance with the Agreement. All Gravitational employees and contract personnel are bound by Gravitational’s internal policies regarding maintaining the confidentiality of Customer Data and are contractually obligated to comply with these obligations.

5. People Security

5.1 Employee Background Checks

Gravitational performs criminal background checks on all new employees at the time of hire in accordance with applicable local laws. Additionally, depending on the nature and scope of a new employee’s role, Gravitational may also conduct additional checks, including verifying a new employee’s education and previous employment and performing reference checks.

5.2 Employee Training

At the time of hire and at least once (1) per year, Gravitational employees must complete a security and privacy awareness training which covers Gravitational’s security policies, security best practices, and privacy principles. Employees on a leave of absence may have additional time to complete this annual training. Gravitational’s dedicated security team also performs phishing awareness campaigns and communicates emerging threats to employees. Gravitational has also established an anonymous method for employees to report any unethical behavior where anonymous reporting is legally permitted.

6. Third-Party Vendor Management

6.1 Vendor Assessment

Gravitational may use third-party vendors to provide the Services. Gravitational carries out a security risk-based assessment of prospective vendors before working with them to validate they meet Gravitational’s security requirements. Gravitational periodically reviews each vendor in light of Gravitational’s security and business continuity standards, including the type of access and classification of data being accessed (if any), controls necessary to protect data, and legal or regulatory requirements. Gravitational ensures that Customer Data is returned and/or deleted at the end of a vendor relationship.

6.2 Vendor Agreements

Gravitational enters into written agreements with all of its vendors which include confidentiality, privacy, and security obligations that provide an appropriate level of protection for Customer Data that these vendors may process.

7. Security Certifications and Attestations

Gravitational holds the following security-related certifications and attestations:

  • HIPAA Security Rule
  • HITECH Breach Notification Requirements
  • ISO/IEC 27001
  • ISO/IEC 27701
  • PCI DSS
  • SOC 2 Type II (Trust Service Criteria: Security, Confidentiality, Availability)

At least annually, Gravitational will engage with an independent assessor to conduct a compliance assessment and provide a full certification, attestation, review, or report. The results of such assessments are available (under appropriate non-disclosure obligations) to Customers at https://trust.goteleport.com/. To the extent Gravitational decides to discontinue a certification or attestation, Gravitational will adopt or maintain an equivalent, industry-recognized framework.

At least annually, Gravitational will engage with an independent assessor to conduct a compliance assessment and provide a full certification, attestation, review, or report. The results of such assessments are available (under appropriate non-disclosure obligations) to Customers at https://trust.goteleport.com/. To the extent Gravitational decides to discontinue a certification or attestation, Gravitational will adopt or maintain an equivalent, industry-recognized framework.

8. Hosting Architecture and Data Segregation

8.1 Amazon Web Services

The Services are hosted on Amazon Web Services (“AWS”) primarily in the United States of America and protected by the security and environmental controls of AWS. The production environment within AWS where the Services and Customer Data are hosted are logically isolated in a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). Customer Data stored within AWS is encrypted at all times. AWS does not have access to unencrypted Customer Data. More information about AWS security is available at https://aws.amazon.com/security/ and https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/shared-responsibility-model/. For AWS compliance audits and reports, please see https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/.

8.2 Services

For the Services, all network access between production hosts is restricted, using access control lists to allow only authorized services to interact in the production network. Access control lists are in use to manage network segregation between different security zones in the production and corporate environments. Access control lists are reviewed regularly. Gravitational separates Customer Data using logical identifiers. Customer Data is tagged with a unique customer identifier that is assigned to segregate Customer Data ownership. The Services are designed and built to identify and allow authorized access only to and from Customer Data identified with customer-specific tags. These controls prevent other customers from having access to Customer Data.

9. Physical Security

AWS is strictly controlled both at the perimeter and at building ingress points by professional security staff utilizing video surveillance, intrusion detection systems, and other electronic means. Authorized staff must pass two-factor authentication (2FA) a minimum of two (2) times to access data center floors. All visitors and contractors are required to present identification and are signed in and continually escorted by authorized staff. These facilities are designed to withstand adverse weather and other reasonably predictable natural conditions. Each data center has redundant electrical power systems that are available twenty-four (24) hours a day, seven (7) days a week. Uninterruptible power supplies and on-site generators are available to provide back-up power in the event of an electrical failure. More information about AWS data center security is available at https://aws.amazon.com/compliance/data-center/controls/.

In addition, Gravitational headquarters and office spaces have a physical security program that manages visitors, building entrances, closed circuit televisions, and overall office security.

10. Security by Design

Gravitational follows security by design principles when it designs the Services. Gravitational also applies the Gravitational Secure Software Development Lifecycle (Secure SDLC) standard to perform numerous security-related activities for the Services across different phases of the product creation lifecycle from requirements gathering and product design all the way through product deployment. These activities include, but are not limited to, the performance of (a) internal security reviews before deploying new Services or code; (b) penetration testing by independent third-parties; and/or (c) threat models for new Services to detect potential security threats and vulnerabilities.

11. Access Controls

11.1 Provisioning Access

To minimize the risk of data exposure, Gravitational follows the principles of least privilege through a team-based-access-control model when provisioning system access. Gravitational personnel are authorized to access Customer Data based on their job function, role, and responsibilities. Access rights to production environments that are not time-based are reviewed at least quarterly. An employee’s access to Customer Data is promptly removed upon termination of their employment. In order to access the production environment, an authorized user must have unique credentials with multi-factor authentication enabled. Before an engineer is granted access to the production environment, access must be approved by management. Gravitational logs high risk actions and changes in the production environment. Gravitational leverages automation to identify any deviation from internal technical standards that could indicate anomalous/unauthorized activity to raise an alert within minutes of a configuration change.

11.2 Password Controls

Gravitational’s current policy for employee password management follows the NIST SP 800-63B guidance, and as such, Gravitational’s policy focuses on high entropy by using longer passwords, with multi-factor authentication, and does not require special characters or frequent changes. When a customer logs into their account, Gravitational hashes the credential of the user before it is stored. A customer may also require its users to add another layer of security to their account by using two-factor authentication (2FA). Any vendor default credentials are promptly modified by Gravitational.

12. Change Management

Gravitational has a formal change management process it follows to administer changes to the production environment for the Services, including any changes to its underlying software, applications, and systems. Each change is reviewed and evaluated in a test environment before being deployed into the production environment for the Services. All changes, including the evaluation of the changes in a test environment, are documented using a formal, auditable system of record. A rigorous assessment is carried out for all high-risk changes to evaluate their impact on the overall security of the Services. Deployment approval for high-risk changes is required from the correct organizational stakeholders. Plans and procedures are also implemented for high-risk changes in the event a deployed change needs to be rolled back to preserve the security of the Services.

13. Configuration Management

Gravitational establishes secure baseline configurations for the system(s) of the Services that access or store Customer Data according to the principle of least functionality.

14. Encryption

For the Services, (a) the databases that store Customer Data are encrypted using the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) with at least 256-bits and (b) Customer Data is encrypted when in transit between Customer’s software application and the Services using TLS v1.2 or higher.

15. Vulnerability & Patch Management

Gravitational maintains controls and policies to mitigate the risk of security vulnerabilities in a measurable time frame that balances risk and the business/operational requirements. Gravitational uses a third-party tool to conduct vulnerability scans regularly to assess vulnerabilities in Gravitational’s cloud infrastructure and corporate systems. Critical software patches are evaluated, tested, and applied proactively.

16. Penetration Testing

Gravitational performs penetration tests and engages independent third-party entities to conduct application and network-level penetration tests on at least an annual basis. Security threats and vulnerabilities that are detected are prioritized, triaged, and remediated promptly. Results of application-level penetration tests are publicized at https://trust.goteleport.com/. Gravitational maintains a bug bounty program, which allows independent security researchers to report security threats and vulnerabilities on an ongoing basis.

17. Security Incident Management

Gravitational maintains security incident management policies and procedures in accordance with NIST SP 800-61. Gravitational’s Incident Response Team assesses all relevant security threats and vulnerabilities and establishes appropriate remediation and mitigation actions. Gravitational retains security logs for a minimum of one (1) year. Access to these security logs is limited to authorized personnel. Security logs are secured in a manner to prevent unauthorized access, modification, and accidental or deliberate destruction. Gravitational utilizes third-party tools to detect, mitigate, and prevent Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

18. Discovery, Investigation, and Notification of a Security Incident

Gravitational will promptly investigate a Security Incident upon discovery. To the extent permitted by applicable law, Gravitational will notify Customer of a Security Incident in accordance with the Data Protection Addendum. Security Incident notifications will be provided to Customer via email to the email address designated by Customer in its account. Such notifications will include a brief summary of the available facts and the status of Gravitational’s investigation.

19. Resilience and Service Continuity

19.1 Resilience

The hosting infrastructure for the Services (a) spans multiple fault-independent availability zones in geographic regions physically separated from one another and (b) is able to detect and route around issues experienced by hosts or even whole data centers in real time and employ orchestration tooling that has the ability to regenerate hosts, building them from the latest backup.

19.2 Service Continuity

Gravitational also leverages specialized tools available within the hosting infrastructure for the Services to monitor server performance, data, and traffic load capacity within each availability zone and colocation data center. If suboptimal server performance or overloaded capacity is detected on a server within an availability zone or colocation data center, these specialized tools increase the capacity or shift traffic to relieve any suboptimal server performance or capacity overload. Gravitational is also promptly notified in the event of any suboptimal server performance or overloaded capacity.

20. Backups and Recovery

20.1 Customer Data Backups

Gravitational performs regular backups of Customer Data, which is hosted on AWS’s data center infrastructure. Customer Data that is backed up is retained redundantly across multiple availability zones and encrypted in transit and at rest. Such backups are tested and validated for correctness and completeness at least annually.

20.2 Disaster Recovery

Gravitational maintains, regularly tests (no less than annually), and provides appropriate training for a contingency plan covering the Services if Customer is using Gravitational’s cloud-based SaaS offering.