Responsible Disclosure & Bug Bounty

Version 1.0 – July 2025

1. Purpose & Philosophy

YieldGuard is committed to the security of our users’ assets and the stability of the broader on-chain Treasury-bill ecosystem. We operate a responsible-disclosure programme—hosted on Immunefi and mirrored here—to provide researchers with clear, safe and rewarding channels to report vulnerabilities.

2. Scope

LayerIn ScopeNotes
Smart-contracts

AggregatorVault, StrategyRouter, Guard, KYC_PASS, proxy & timelock contracts

Verify addresses on our docs site

Front-end

app.yieldguard.finance, dashboard.yieldguard.finance

Including source maps & sub-resource integrity

Off-chain micro-services

Rebalance Cron, Oracle Watcher, AI Agent Orchestrator

Hosted in AWS Fargate—see architecture docs

API & Subgraph

api.yieldguard.finance REST and WebSocket, TheGraph subgraph

Rate-limit bypass and auth flaws included

Docs & Marketing site

yieldguard.finance

XSS, CSRF, cache poisoning

2.1 Out-of-Scope Examples

  • Denial-of-Service (volumetric or application-layer)
  • Social engineering or phishing of staff or users
  • Third-party platforms (e.g., Discord, X/Twitter), unless they lead to direct compromise
  • Automated scanners with no PoC or reproducibility

3. Eligibility Requirements

  1. Be the first to report an unknown, non-public vulnerability.
  2. Provide a clear proof-of-concept (PoC) that reproduces the issue.
  3. Abstain from exploiting the vulnerability beyond what is necessary to demonstrate impact.
  4. Comply with all applicable laws and regulations.
  5. For rewards ≥ 10,000 USDC, complete a one-time KYC check to satisfy AML rules.

4. Safe Harbour

We will not pursue legal action or refer law enforcement for good-faith, non-malicious research that complies with this policy. Any related contractual, DMCA, or Anti-Hacking claims will be waived. If in doubt, ask first via security@yieldguard.finance.

5. Disclosure Process & SLA

  • Acknowledgement: Within 24 hours of receipt
  • Triage & Severity rating: ≤ 5 business days
  • Fix or mitigation: Target ≤ 30 days for Critical/High, ≤ 60 days for Medium/Low
  • Public disclosure: Reporter may publish after: (a) patch released or (b) 90 days from acknowledgement—whichever is sooner
  • Payout: Within 7 days of patch or mutual disclosure agreement

We may request up to two 30-day extensions for complex fixes; reporters may decline, but must defer public release until the extension expires.

6. Severity Classification & Reward Matrix

Rewards are paid in USDC and benchmarked against the OWASP–EVM severity model. The programme has a 75,000 USDC rolling pool, topped up quarterly.

SeverityImpact ExamplesReward (USDC)
CriticalTheft or permanent loss of user funds, bypass of multi-signature, mint/burn imbalance, arbitrary upgrade20,000 – 40,000
HighTemporary DoS of vault, incorrect NAV calc > 0.5%, oracle manipulation affecting > $100 k TVL7,500 – 15,000
MediumCircumvention of issuer caps, KYC bypass, re-entrancy freezing funds < $100 k, gas griefing2,500 – 7,000
LowMinor rounding errors, UI-only XSS, information disclosure without user impact500 – 2,000
InformationalBest-practice suggestions, typos, non-exploitable issuesSwag & leaderboard points

Final rewards within the band depend on exploitability, quality of report, and completeness of PoC.

7. How to Report

Please include:

  • Overview & affected components
  • Step-by-step reproduction
  • Expected vs actual behaviour
  • Impact assessment & severity suggestion
  • Solidity diff or transaction trace if on-chain

8. Duplicates & Previous Reports

  • Only the first valid report for a specific vulnerability is eligible.
  • Issues already known internally or publicly are ineligible.

9. Exclusions & Non-Qualifying Findings

  • Reports without a working PoC
  • Self-XSS or rate-limit spam tests
  • Unencrypted credentials in memory dumps without a clear exploit path
  • Lack of DNSSEC, SPF, or other common configurations outside core infrastructure

10. Hall of Fame & Leaderboard

Researchers may opt to be listed on our public leaderboard with an alias, severity points, and total rewards.

11. Program Changes

YieldGuard may amend reward ranges or scope with a 7-day notice on Immunefi & docs; submitted reports remain governed by the policy in effect at the time of submission.

12. Contact

PGP-encrypted e-mails are strongly recommended.

  • Security hotline (Signal): +1-415-555-0139 (text only)
  • Status page & live incident updates: status.yieldguard.finance