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Policies and Reports

As a federal agency, NCPC develops periodic reports, plans and other information describing compliance with federal requirements and directives. NCPC is fully committed to engaging the public and created this page as a resource.

Vulnerability Disclosure Policy

  1. Purpose
    2. The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) is committed to ensuring the security of the American public by protecting their information from unwarranted disclosure. This Vulnerability Disclosure Policy (VDP) is intended to give security researchers clear guidelines for conducting vulnerability discovery activities and to convey our preferences in how to submit discovered vulnerabilities to the NCPC.
    This VDP describes what system and types of research are covered under this policy, how to send NCPC vulnerability reports, and how long NCPC asks security researchers to wait before publicly disclosing vulnerabilities.
    NCPC wants security researchers to feel comfortable reporting vulnerabilities they discover – as set out in this policy – so NCPC can fix them and keep our users safe. NCPC has developed this policy to reflect our values and uphold our sense of responsibility to security researchers who share their expertise with us in good faith.

  2. Authority
    3. This policy has been developed in accordance with the requirements set forth in Binding Operational Directive 20-01 – Develop and Publish a Vulnerability Disclosure Policy.
    A binding operational directive is a compulsory direction to federal, executive branch, departments and agencies for purposes of safeguarding federal information and information systems.

  3. Guidelines
    4. The NCPC has established the following guidelines for conducting vulnerability discovery activities on NCPC information systems. NCPC requests that security researchers:
    1. Notify NCPC as soon as you discover a real or potential security issue.
    2. Provide NCPC a reasonable amount of time, at least five business days after acknowledging receipt, to resolve the issue before you disclose it publicly.
    3. Make every effort to avoid privacy violations, degradation of user experience, disruption to production systems, and destruction or manipulation of data.
    4. Only use exploits to the extent necessary to confirm a vulnerability’s presence. Do not use an exploit to compromise or exfiltrate data, establish command line access and/or persistence, or use the exploit to “pivot” to other systems.
    5. Once you have established that a vulnerability exists or encounter any sensitive data (including personally identifiable information, financial information, or proprietary information or trade secrets of any party), you must stop your test, notify NCPC immediately, and do not disclose this data to anyone else.
    6. Do not submit a high volume of low-quality reports. Reports must include a description of the vulnerability including the method used to identify the vulnerability, its location on the site, its potential impact, technical information needed to reproduce the vulnerability, and any proof-of-concept code. The date and time of the attack would assist in identifying the events in log reports.

  4. Authorization
    5. If you make a good faith effort to comply with this policy during your security research, we will consider your research to be authorized, we will work with you to understand and resolve the issue quickly, and NCPC will not recommend or pursue legal action related to your research.

  5. Scope
    6. This policy applies to the following systems and services:
    • www.ncpc.gov
    • Any other subdomain of ncpc.gov and all customer applications are excluded from this policy.
    Any service not expressly listed above, such as any connected services, are excluded from scope and are not authorized for testing. Additionally, vulnerabilities found in non-federal systems from our vendors fall outside of this policy’s scope and should be reported directly to the vendor according to their disclosure policy (if any). If you are not sure whether a system or endpoint is in scope or not, contact us on the web form located at www.ncpc.gov/vulnerability-disclosure-policy before starting your research or at the security contact for the system’s domain name listed in the .gov WHOIS.
    Though we develop and maintain other internet-accessible systems or services, we ask that active research and testing only be conducted on the systems and services covered by the scope of this document. If there is a particular system not in scope that you think merits testing, please contact us to discuss it first. We will increase the scope of this policy over time.
    If you find a vulnerability that exposes personally identifiable information (usernames, passwords, email addresses, etc) while testing within the scope of this policy, stop your test and notify us immediately.


  6. Types of Testing
    7. The following test types are not authorized:
    • Network denial of service (DoS or DDoS) tests
    • Physical testing (e.g., office access, open doors, tailgating), social engineering (e.g., phishing, vishing), or any other non-technical vulnerability testing

  7. Reporting a Vulnerability
    8. Information submitted under this policy will be used for defensive purposes only – to mitigate or remediate vulnerabilities. We accept vulnerability reports through a web form (click button below). Reports may be submitted anonymously.
    We will acknowledge receipt of your report within 3 business days. We do not support PGP-encrypted emails at this time. However, our web form uses TLS 1.2 and is submitted through HTTPS.

    Report Vulnerability

    What we would like to see from you
    This Vulnerability Disclosure Policy sets out expectations when working with good-faith testers, as well as what to expect from NCPC. To encourage good-faith security testing and disclosure of discovered vulnerabilities, as well as assist with the triaging and prioritization of submissions, we recommend that your reports:
    • Make a good faith effort to avoid privacy violations and disruptions to others, including, but not limited to, unauthorized access to or destruction of data and interruption or degradation of our services.
    • Do not exploit a security issue you discover for any reason. This includes demonstrating additional risk, such as attempted compromise of sensitive agency data or probing for additional issues.
    • Do not intentionally violate any other laws or regulations, including, but not limited to, laws and regulations prohibiting the unauthorized access to data.
    • If contributor inadvertently cause a privacy violation or disruption (such as accessing account data, service configurations, or other confidential information) while investigating an issue, data is prohibited from being saved, stored, transferred or otherwise further accessed after initial discovery. You shall notify NCPC of such privacy violation or disruption as soon as possible. A written description of the vulnerability or a screenshot demonstrating the existence of the vulnerability may need to serve as an acceptable form of proof.
    • Describe the vulnerability, where it was discovered, and the potential impact of exploitation.
    • Offer a detailed description of the steps needed to reproduce the vulnerability (proof of concept scripts or screenshots are helpful).
    • Be in English, if possible.

    What you can expect from us
    When you choose to share your contact information with us, we commit to coordinating with you as openly and as quickly as possible.
    • Within 3 business days, we will acknowledge that your report has been received.
    • To the best of our ability, we will confirm the existence of the vulnerability to you and be as transparent as possible about what steps we are taking during the remediation process, including on issues or challenges that may delay resolution.
    • We will maintain an open dialogue to discuss issues.
    • Researchers will not receive payment for submitting vulnerabilities and that by submitting, researchers waive any claims to compensation.

  8. Legal
    9. You must comply with all applicable Federal, State, and local laws in connection with your security research activities or other participation in this vulnerability disclosure program.
    NCPC does not authorize, permit, or otherwise allow any person, including any individual, group of individuals, consortium, partnership, or any other business or legal entity to engage in any security research or vulnerability or threat disclosure activity that is inconsistent with this policy or the law. If you engage in any activities that are inconsistent with this policy or the law, you may be subject to criminal and/or civil liabilities.
    To the extent that any security research or vulnerability disclosure activity involves the networks, systems, information, applications, products, or services of a non-NCPC entity (e.g., other Federal departments or agencies; State, local, or tribal governments; private sector companies or persons; employees or personnel of any such entities; or any other such third party), that non-NCPC third party may independently determine whether to pursue legal action or remedies related to such activities.
    If you conduct your security research and vulnerability disclosure activities in accordance with the restrictions and guidelines set forth in this policy, (1) NCPC will not initiate or recommend any law enforcement or civil lawsuits related to such activities, and (2) in the event of any law enforcement or civil action brought by anyone other than NCPC, NCPC will take steps to make known that your activities were conducted pursuant to and in compliance with this policy.
    NCPC may modify the terms of this policy or terminate the policy at any time.

  9. Questions
    10. Questions regarding this policy may be sent by clicking on the button below. We also invite you to contact us with suggestions for improving this policy.


The National Capital Planning Commission is the federal government's planning agency for the National Capital Region.

The 12-member Commission meets monthly to adopt, approve, or provide advice on plans and projects that impact the nation's capital and surrounding areas.

401 9th Street, NW
Suite 500N
Washington DC 20004
Phone: (202) 482-7200
Email: info@ncpc.gov
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