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Microsoft Blames the Messengers
Roger writes: "In an essay published on microsoft.com, Scott Culp, Manager of the Microsoft Security Response Center, calls on security experts to "end information anarchy" and stop releasing sample code that exploits security holes in Windows and other operating systems. "It's high time the security community stopped providing the blueprints for building these weapons," Culp writes in the essay. "And it's high time that computer users insisted that the security community live up to its obligation to protect them." See the story on Cnet News.com."
It's probably high time that Microsoft stop building houses made of straw to defend against big bad 'net wolves... It'd sure make a lot of our lives easier...
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Information wants...you to shut your pie hole.
They're trying to say "stop finding holes faster than we can make...err...fix them". My my what a cheap political backstab.
I am !amused.
Much better that the "black-hats" "secretly" circulate the information.
</sarcasm>
If the security experts didn't find and pubilsh the holes, good luck on Microsoft making the fixes a "priority".
Yes, just like keeping Cryptography code secret improves the algorithm. I agree that the company should be notified before the flaw is announced, but seriously, the entire point of a security response center is to inform users as to vulnerabilities...
If you don't tell anyone that the construction company used shoddy materials, then no one will figure out how to make the building collapse!
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"Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong." --Dennis Miller
...Windows®, Linux, and Solaris®...
What's wrong with that picture? Linux *is also* a registered trademark, Microsoft. I suggest you recognize it as such.
Linus, kick some ass here.
Blech. Signatures.
Because, if the security hole didn't exist in the first place, then Microsoft wouldn't have to worry about all this bad press starting to cost them business; and more importantly mindshare.
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
And just how am I supposed to know I've patched a hole if I don't know how it gets exploited?
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
It's high time we stopped teaching Chemistry and Biology! People are spreading information that essentially maps out exactly how the human body works, which allows for all sorts of chemical and biological weapons! And explosives, too!
In other news, Master Lock wants to release a new model made out of twine and butter. They ask the community to avoid discussing the security of the lock, since they anticipate it getting deployed widely, and once the ButterLock is being used to secure mission-critical systems, it will be extremely important to keep its flaws a secret.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
By putting out solid information, people who find these exploits are doing two things: Giving the programmers specific information with which to fix the problems, and giving script kiddies some really damn good instructions for hacking into a box.
The system relies on the reaction time of the programmers.. can they supply a patch before the crackers supply an exploit?
Those of us in the *nix world seem to do pretty good.. for all sorts of reasons you don't need to go into here. Windows? Heh.. it can take months for something to get patched up. No wonder he's mad that these 'blueprints' are being provided. It's simply an extension of the security through obscurity mode of thought.
it's high time that computer users insisted that the security community live up to its obligation to protect them
I'm not sure whether anyone, other than law-enforcement agents, is obligated to protect computer users, but if anyone is, surely the people who produce the software are more obligated to prevent or solve these problems than are those who merely report on them.
Is this, along with the U.S. government's warning to news agencies to be careful what they broadcast, a sign of a new trend?
Several times we've seen security experts say to a large company, "Hey! there's a nasty exploit here!" The large company indicates they'll fix it and ignores the problem. Only when the exploit is publicized do companies like Microsoft actually take the effort to fix the code. Releasing the information is the only way. Perhaps out of courtesy the security community could give the company with the bug a week's notice.
I thought most security exploits that get released by the major groups are usually passed through MS first and allow them time to provide a patch before issuing the details of the exploit. So why are they so upset? Its not MS nor the security experts who are at fault for not patching machines. At least by publishing them they are provided an incentive to staying on top of security holes, instead of simply allowing them to remain secret. I mean none of the major exploits lately (code red, nimda, etc.) have used unpublished exploits. So this shows a failing in MS's procedures for keeping admins informed and a failing in the admins for keeping on top of their networks. Its such a non-issue, I think MS just wants to preempt law suits or some other such silliness.
I'd wager this is the first volley in another push by MS to cover thier asses by legal means. I see another push to make the release of any information that shows weaknesses a criminal activity. Expect lots of flag waving, anti-terrorism rhetoric to be sprinkled throughout, and some suspect demands that seem to be more motivated at gaining market share than protecting machines.
God damn... when did I get so cynical? Oh yeah, after reboot #3 of NT 4.0 today. {grumble grumble grumble}
Of course, MS just wants to skirt responsibility for negligance on their part.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Hmm, this has always seemed to be a hot discussion...I'm all for full disclosure, but is it really necessary for people to include exploit code?
One argument is that it can help people to test their systems for vulnerabilities, bit I think that exploit code is not strictly necessary for this. People who really need it to test systems are in a position where they should have the capability or the resources to generate a "test script" for themselves, once given an accurate description of the vulnerability.
Making code exploits freely available possibly creates more opportunity for the low-life script kiddies who often don't appreciate exactly what they are doing, or the mechanics of the exploits that they are using. Why should we make it easy for those guys?
My opinion on this element of full disclosure is still not complete though, and I am fully prepared to be convinced... :)
-- Pete.
Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
here we go:
"It's high time the security community stopped providing the blueprints for building these weapons..."
How about providing the blueprints to your code, so we can secure the systems you release broken to begin with?
I'm not anti-Microsoft (although I'm getting there, definitely getting there...), I do Windows development also in Visual Studio. I'm near the point of stopping that altogether though. My company is already using Linux for damn near everything (including desktops, not just hosting) anyhow.
This is more than just your average case of idiocy from MS. If I ran a pharmaceutical company, and a drug we produced killed 500 people, do you think the public would accept some excuse like this? "No, really, it's all the fault of the doctors who showed their patients how to take the pills..."
Maybe not a perfect analogy, but equally stupid. When will they learn? Probably when Joe Customer starts realizing how indecent their blame machine really is. Apache isn't perfect, Linux isn't perfect... but we admit this and work toward solutions. Average Joe won't stay completely blind forever; most people aren't stupid (my faith in humanity talking here), and you can't fool anyone indefinitely.
Damn, and I was cutting down on my smoking...
... and just write pseudocode or a very detailed step-by-step description of what their code does. In the end script kiddies will have to learn to write their own leet tools, and may later on branch these skills into other areas.
:)
If security experts took the time to make exploit code an exercise for the reader, we might someday end up with skript kiddies who can even write their own hardware drivers for Linux. They might even learn to write and discover new exploits for Windows without the help of security experts.
Microsoft got it on the nose this time
"Look at me, I invented the stove!" -- Ben Franklin
The security watchdogs of the net have no obligation to me. I am glad they do their tasks, but the owe me nothing.
My software providers have an obligation to provide me with secure software or none at all. I commend both Debian and Apple for responding to their occasional security problems in a timely manner.
In the olden days when watchdogs did not release sample code some software providers downplayed their flaws as theoretical problems. If the software providers had been responsive to security flaws, there would be no need for sample code.
doing a quick search on bugtraq, I see a lot of linux exploit code too. Hmm... let's blame the linux exploit code for the net-stopping worms like... ummm... and also the.. ahhh... well, you know. No Microsoft, making exploit code widely available does make make your product less secure. You do.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
I can imagine that his Scott Culp is very stressed out right now. Can you imagine being in this guy's position with worms like Code Red floating around?
So what does he do? He posts an essay which is basically a reflection of his anxiety. However, he misses two very key points on why this information anarchy is a good thing.
* Patches for popular software that are exploitable tend to come out real quick because the company has to save face and perhaps protect against liability suits.
* A necessary fear is instilled into companies to put software through a secuirty audi before it goes into production.
I hope this guy takes a vacation somewhere on the beach to reflect on his thoughts.
sigh. OK, let's try this again: BECAUSE OTHERWISE PEOPLE WON'T TAKE YOU SERIOUSLY. Now let's review: how many people patched eEye's .IDA exploit when it came out and did not include an exploit? Not bloody many. How many patched it after Code Red made it abundantly clear that this was a very exploitable vulnerability? Hundreds of thousands more. The obvious truth here is that full disclosure and the inclusion of exploit scripts opens people's eyes to the fact that people are going to use this hole to break into YOUR system.
By not giving exploit scripts you allow sysadmins to become lazy. They figure "Nah, i'll just wait until an exploit comes out before i patch it", while the underground hax0r scene is already searching out your box.
What makes you think that not having it displayed all over the web will make it any less available to to the people who want to do harm?
Black hats are going to get ahold of the exploit, even if the source code to it is not published on incidents.org or bugtraq. All that not publishing it there does is provide a false sense of security.
Publishing the details in a high-visibility location does several things:
The script kiddiez are going to get these exploits when they download them from their favourite r00t kit location. Lets not pretend that not publishing the same exploits to the general public really makes things much safer.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
This argument that Microsoft is making is the same stupid argument that was made by Richard M. Smith on Friday Aug 10, 2001 shortly after Code Red.
d =1&mid=203550
The short story is that eEye's announcement had absolutely nothing to do with Code Red. The person(s) who developed Code Red figured out the exploit on their own. For more details check out Marc Maiffret's (of eEye) email to the Bugtraq list: http://www.securityfocus.com/cgi-bin/archive.pl?i
People who argue that full disclosure is harmful just fail to realize the facts of the matter- people who write these attacks all aren't script kiddies and they're quite capable of developing attacks on their own. And the reality is that most vendors only respond to full disclosure to actually fix bugs (and even then it takes too long).
Nuff said.
"Yes," said kingdom spokesman Jim Dilldunnam, "the Emperor is aware of his nudity. But His Majesty's nakedness would not be a problem for the uneducated masses if you irresponsible media types would just cease telling them about it."
== Paul Rickard, Editor of The Microsoft Boycott Campaign ====
Information Anarchy
Expect to see this term bandied about frequently.
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
Supporters of information anarchy claim that publishing full details on exploiting vulnerabilities actually helps security...and bringing pressure on software vendors to address the vulnerabilities. These may be their intentions, but in practice information anarchy is antithetical to all three goals.
All three goals? There's some on this later - but assuming that he's right with the rest of the entire essay, you'd expect there to be some pressure to address the vulnerabilities, would there not? He even goes further, saying that pulished exploits are antithetical to getting patches out. Brilliant logic.
Providing a recipe for exploiting a vulnerability doesn't aid administrators in protecting their networks. In the vast majority of cases, the only way to protect against a security vulnerability is to apply a fix that changes the system behavior and eliminates the vulnerability; in other cases, systems can be protected through administrative procedures. But regardless of whether the remediation takes the form of a patch or a workaround, an administrator doesn't need to know how a vulnerability works in order to understand how to protect against it, any more than a person needs to know how to cause a headache in order to take an aspirin.
I love this analogy. It actually works. For example - if I knew that the cause of my headaches was an allergy to certain foods, I could avoid those foods, and not have to take aspirin. If I know how an exploit works, I can prevent it with my own tools - firewall, etc. and not have to worry too much about the dubious patches.
Likewise, if information anarchy is intended to spur users into defending their systems, the worms themselves conclusively show that it fails to do this. Long before the worms were built, vendors had delivered security patches that eliminated the vulnerabilities.
Here he's not talking about e-mail "viruses", but worms. Specifically, worms targetting systems people did not know they had on their system. There was plenty of buzz about Code Red before most people had it, and the patch was applied to thousands of computers as people got worried. I'm not an advocate of having people upgrade through fear, but this still disproves his point.
Now - here's his reason for published exploits to take pressure off of vendors to publish fixes :
Finally, information anarchy threatens to undo much of the progress made in recent years with regard to encouraging vendors to openly address security vulnerabilities. At the end of the day, a vendor's paramount responsibility is to its customers, not to a self-described security community. If openly addressing vulnerabilities inevitably leads to those vulnerabilities being exploited, vendors will have no choice but to find other ways to protect their customers.
Crap...I'm trying to find a problem with the logic, but I can't actually understand the argument - anyone? What other ways are there for vendors to protect their customers than put out fixes?
Anyway, that said, I'd just like to express my condolences to the author. Did you see his title? "Manager of Microsoft Security Response Center" Poor guy is probably blamed for half the bugs in code he's never heard of. Can blame him for venting a little. I just wouldn't have done it as publicly.
Last post!
The people who wrote them have been rightly condemned as criminals.
...and if there hadn't been security vulnerabilities in Windows®, Linux, and Solaris®, none of them could have been written. This is a true statement, but it doesn't bring us any closer to a solution.
...information anarchy. This is the practice of deliberately publishing explicit, step-by-step instructions for exploiting security vulnerabilities, without regard for how the information may be used.
Ok, I'm going to be snide, the author points to the exploitation tools, but one could also argue that windows (don't laff) "security model", closed source apps, IIS are the *initial* tools of exploitation. Lest I forget, Integration, legislation, co-opting, barriers to entry keep other (maybe better, maybe worse) products from hitting the market and (say it with me) promoting competition.
It's high time the security community stopped providing blueprints for building these weapons. And it's high time computer users insisted that the security community live up to its obligation to protect them.
Why? No one believed that certain (ford/chevy?) trucks would blow up like a bomb when hit from the side...what did they do? Yep, they *Proved IT*, by staging a scenario.
And, not to pick nits or be too smarmy, but "we" are trying to protect users. The fact that PHB's, average users don't *listen* after the 3rd, forth, fifth time of being hacked, wormed, virused, or trojaned via outlook, IIS, IE seem to be nicely sidestepped.
Uh, yes it does...by choosing the most secure of the bunch! No platform is perfect, but if you choose the one with the best track record, gee, you get...surprise, surprise...less of a chance of being exploited. Once bitten, twice shy... but, then again, see my above paragraph with users/phb's.
Ok, I'll ignore the buzzword bingo opportunity, and point out that the author does "get it" a little, that the vulnerabilities mentioned had been patched weeks/months ahead of time.
Ok, cool, Correct me if I a wrong, but I recall seeing a recent article that Microsoft said it needs to "Prioritize" its patches, because, heh, it is confusing!!!
The thing to be rememberd in reading this article the dangerous assumption is this:
If an exploit is found and is dangerous "the security community" *needs* these to tear into and discover how to fight whatever threatens the systems in question.
I'd rather have a fulling working exploit in the hands of a "white hat" than a "black hat".
Don't forget, please, that most of the worms propagated as the result of *malicous* intent and were discovered, stopped, slowed by people with *clear/clean* intent.
That fact seem to be missing.
Moose.
If I am right, I am right...but if I am wrong, show me I a wrong.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
What gains are there to be had by having the source displayed all over the web?
1) The source display should allow any administrator to verify if he is vulnerable, and, after patching, that he is no longer vulnerable.
2) The source code should demonstrate the exact nature of the problem for the coders who wish to fix it. They would otherwise need to write their own exploit to test their fixes.
3) The source code should apply pressure to the software maker. It is akin to being flogged in public. The whole world knows you are vulnerable, and you ought to fix it.
4) The source code of the exploit should make the exploit obvious but not damage the system.
Source code exploits will ALWAYS be published in places where some crackers can get them. The challenge is designing an updating system that allows all users to apply patches in a timely fashion. I think Debian is actually closest on this one.
Microsoft is really going to get nowhere on this one. I've read accounts of people who send exploits to Microsoft in secrecy, and then HAVE to publish the code so that Microsoft is forced to fix the problem. If it doesn't impact Microsoft's marketing, Microsoft doesn't care.
The other issue that relates to this one is secure as possible by default. This principle applies to all Internet usage of computers. Yet Microsoft blatantly violated it in the following: Office Macros, email attachments, NT/Windows 2000 Server config (running IIS by default), Hotmail...
Speaking as an IIS admin, I get really pissed when I can't find sample code for an exploit. I need to be able to test my systems against a newly published exploit. If I don't have a way to do this all I can do is apply the hotfix and hope it works. What if I want to set up some stateful inspection on my firewall just in case, how do I test that? Without sample code I have no way to really know if I am vulnerable or not. IMHO not testing these things would be a pretty irresposible aproach to managing a datacenter.
Except that that was tried. What happened was that the vendors responded with "We can't reproduce that, you must be mistaken, there's no hole in our product.". After a while, the security community came to the conclusion that the only way to get vendors to wake up and actually fix their products was to release enough details that, if there was any question whether the hole existed, the skeptic could recreate the exploit and try it and see for himself. Which leaves the vendor with no way to spin the story, which is what Microsoft's really pissed off about.
but is an exploit REALLY necessary?
It's very useful. For example, you can scan your network for machines running given servers, then launch exploits agains all those that are running, as a double check to find unpatched srervers. Since MS installs servers by default on damn near everything*, without advising the installer, this is the ONLY to be sure your not running unpatched servers. My organization found numerous vulnerable machines this way, even though we thought we had this nailed down.
*(example: Visio 2000 installs MSDE, a form of SQL server, vunerable. CiscoWorks 4.2 (getting old, now) installs IIS vulnerable.)
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
Real admins will tell you that you shouldn't go throwing patches on production machines until they've been tested, either by you on a redundant machine or by the community at large.
Exploit code and exact details let you rig together protection with a firewall, or turning off an optional service, until you feel that a suitable patch is available.
'An adminstrator doesn't need to understand the problem in order to fix it'
This is pure bullshit. It is *extremely* important to understand how these worms and viruses work in order to respond effectively to such threats.
If I, as a programmer, was writing a web application in C that could potentially be remotely exploited via buffer overflow, such information is *absolutely fucking critical* to me, so that i can write safe code.
M$ seem to suffer from the delusion that they are the only people in the world actually writing computer programs.
This unbelievable arrogance is getting pretty tired, and i imagine that we'll be seeing some pretty big anti-M$ stances being taken by previously devout believers in the near future.
If you can't put up, M$, then for christs sake shut up.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
I found this story talking about serious security problem in Novell Groupwise. But they say it is better if they do not tell you what the problem is. But apply the patch NOW
The security community is so large and diverse that effective controls on exploit code and detailed vulnerability information is impossible. Who would determine who gets access? Microsoft? The US Government? The only practical method is the public one.
The enemy is not Microsoft's unwillingness to produce patches for their security vulnerabilities. They have actually proven to be one of the more cooperative vendors for recognizing flaws and producing and releasing patches, at least in recent times.
The enemy is not the public release of explicit vulnerability information, which is necessary for security research.
The enemy is also not the 13-year-old that breaks into computers. Fighting a war against 13-year-olds is a dumb war.
The enemy is the fact that software vendors like Microsoft have consistently chosen to place their customers at a ridiculous amount of risk through default configurations of their software, and the fact that a 13-year-old can break into thousands of computers with little effort or skill.
Why is it that default configurations of all major OSes (note that I'm not singling out Windows here, I'm saying all OSes) come with an absurd amounts of default services open? If the vast majority of customers do not need a service running, then it should not be running. How many nimda infections were from people who had no idea they were running a web server in the first place?
Why is it that default configurations of most prominent workstation and network client software has poor default configurations, security-wise? Do most users out there really need ActiveX or Javascript in their email client? Not only no, but hell no.
Yes, vulnerabilities do occur in all software. I don't think that anyone out there has any expection for Microsoft or any other vendor to achieve perfection here. However, the issue here is that the default posture leaves users prone not just to known vulnerabilities, but to ones that have yet to be discovered.
All software vendors (including but not limited to Microsoft) need to better examine the features of their products to discover potential points of attack. If the majority of users have no need for a particular feature that might be dangerous at some later point in time (e.g., mobile code capabilities, network services, modules to network services like IIS index server, etc.), then they should be disabled by default. Go ahead and make an easy-to-use checkbox for turning that kind of stuff on individually, but don't have it on by default.
Microsoft has recently stated that it is beginning a new initiative to ship their products in secure configurations. I believe that they probably will succeed somewhat here, but we've been hearing similar lines of bull for so long that they have no credibility here until they actually prove it.
Microsoft and other vendors should stop whining about the messengers, and should start shipping products with default configurations and initial postures that are likely to withstand existing and future attacks. Default configurations are enemy number one, not public vulnerability research. Let's see some proactive work being done instead of only reactive work. Microsoft has plenty of problems to fix in their own development processes before they worry about fixing the "problems" they feel the security community has.
The real problem is, that all those security holes make their software look bad. Especially compared to other software. When he mentions that softwaremakers are more aware of security and faster putting out patches, he conveniently forgets to mention, that specifically Microsoft was extremely reluctant to react on security-flaws until they were publicized widely. He also neglects to mention, that it's not only important that there is a patch, but also to make peolpe aware of it. It is very true, that beyond the complexity of "Hello World" there is rarely a piece of perfect software, but he addresses that statement to the wrong people. The security experts already know this, but the customers of microsoft very obviously don't.
Also it must be said, that most of the damage the worms did was to the image of microsoft. These worms showed the extent of vulnerable machines all over the world, but had there been no worms there would be even more vulnerable machines now, with backdoors open to anyone intelligent and motivated enough to write their own exploit. All those worms that draw so much publicity to the security flaws are just the tip of the iceberg. Someone really malicious will have the abilities to sneak in through a hole without a ready script, and he won't do it with a worm that creates a lot of traffic, but silently install a backdoor and do whatever he set out to do.
When calculating the damages a worm did, that always includes a complete system check for data integrity, backdoors, etc. But if the hole was there and had to be patched, who is to say, there wasn't someone/thing else than a well known worm that came in, installed backdoors and corrupted data? And that person will probably do far more damage, since he probably choose that computer for a reason. Much damage is already done, when the system had a hole and was attackable for some time, since that means that system security and integrity can no longer be guaranteed. Many worms are only making aware of that fact.
Microsoft could do far more for the security of their products by making people aware of the importance of patches, but probably that doesn't sit well with marketing.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
I have about 50 Microsoft NT servers from 3.50 thru Windows 2000 REGISTERED with Microsoft. They have my name, my address, my e-mail address, my telephone number.
Never once did they contact me or send me a CD with security patches on it. Never did they send me an email to go to a website to download a fix.
I was told, when I registered my product, that they would keep me informed. They have failed to do so.
The recent exploits of IIS were from known problems that had previous patches. Many users did not patch their system. They did not know that they had to patch their system. Despite Microsoft knowing who the users of NT IIS were, they did not attempt to contact those users and let them know that patches were available.
Not only that, until recently Microsoft made it very difficult to find security patches. Their website is large and complex, and items change location all the time. In the past five years finding patches for security fixes of NT systems has gone from extremely easy, to nearly impossible, to finally getting organized and easier again.
Why is it, that after the outbreak of Code Red, it took days before information was available from a link on Microsoft's main page? Because it is bad marketing. Instead I have to go deeper to find that information. There isn't even a generic link for security from the main page.
When you do get to their security page, you are told that Microsoft is doing the radical step of giving Security Tool Kits away for FREE!!! Amazing, you bloody well better give it to me for free. It's your buggy code that had the problem in the first place. I'm a registered user, I haven't received a kit yet.
Microsoft is finally starting to take some initiative with this security thing. But, they shouldn't run around pointing fingers at anyone other than themselves
In my most recent finds, not made public yet, there are a number of gross privacy bugs in some pretty major websites ( similar to the hotmail problems, but with banking, news and ecommerce sites ).. Well, besides the difficulty in even finding someone in their organization to tell about the problem, once told they ususally do nothing. So, the question I have is what do I do now? Leave your banking site wide open, or make the exploit public to get something done?
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
That isn't the attitude I'd want someone providing my software to take.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
It appears to me that Mr. Culp has misunderstood the purpose of the scientific method. The goal of which is to allow other researchers the ability to reproduce one's test/bug/experiment.
Programmers use code to share their experiments because it is the simplest, best, most consistent way to do so. Not asking security and programming experts not to share "blueprints" is like asking toxicologists not to share the chemical formulas for the compounds they're researching.
Mr. Culp needs to take a vacation away from the stress of his job and bone up on how to systemically approach problem solving and the sharing of information used to produce repeatable experiments/tests/exploits.
Culp says...
.NET initiative. I suspect this is why Microsoft was so reluctant to repair the security flaws within IIS. Code Red and Nimda exploits APIs that Microsoft intends for their .NET initiative. Disabling these APIs would cripple .NET. Therefore, Microsoft did not fix IIS until they could re-think the design of .NET.
.NET will reinforce his point. Given their track record, I expect .NET to be Microsoft's magnum opus of security deficiency.
.NET is out of the question. I guess Culp feels controlling what the world is allowed to communicate about .NET is easier.
"First, let's state the obvious. All of these worms made use of security flaws in the systems they attacked, and if there hadn't been security vulnerabilities in Windows®, Linux, and Solaris®, none of them could have been written. This is a true statement, but it doesn't bring us any closer to a solution. While the industry can and should deliver more secure products, it's unrealistic to expect that we will ever achieve perfection. All non-trivial software contains bugs, and modern software systems are anything but trivial. Indeed, they are among the most complex things humanity has ever developed. Security vulnerabilities are here to stay."
In the above argument, Culp uses truth to validate fallacy. It's true that no code is perfect. It's false that security will improve by mandating gag orders.
More to the point, Microsoft is especially frustrated with flaws being exposed in their code. Frankly, I believe the hacks associated with Microsoft products differ fundamentally from the flaws discovered in Solaris and Linux. When a Linux exploit is discovered, hackers and maintainers consider it a design flaw. Therefore, exploits are generally fixed pretty fast on Linux -- usually within a few days. The same is true for Solaris.
Apparently however, Microsoft does not consider certain exploits to be design flaws. Sometimes, hackers simply leverage "features" (e.g. undocumented APIs) that Microsoft deliberately designed into their applications and/or systems.
Microsoft applications tend to execute arbitrary code. In other words, Microsoft deliberately empowers IIS, Exchange, Internet Explorer, Outlook and certain Office applications to execute unchecked commands fed over the Internet. Once hackers discover these (badly!) hidden APIs, it is only a matter of time before someone sends you an email which does something nasty to your computer.
Interestingly, despite these obvious security issues, Microsoft wants their programs to execute arbitrary code. Remember the Microsoft Word viruses? Remember the Excel viruses? Heck, email viruses were fiction until Exchange and Outlook...
Microsoft has had years of experience and feedback since the first MS-Word virus. Obviously, they understand the risks of allowing applications to execute arbitrary code. Nevertheless, they continue to build this ability into all their major products.
In fact, arbitrary code execution appears to be one of the core technologies behind Microsoft's
Culp states that vulnerabilities are here to stay. Most likely,
At this late stage, re-designing
Enjoy! Jon
It's silent for years...
Many diseases are deadly if untreated. Often the scarriest ones are those that kill silently over time. This is what MS is asking for. Security holes can be an obvious pain or a silent killer. If exploits are not made popular and fixed then the exploit will be available to those who know the most and can potentially do the most harm. Once again this is a plead for a solution that will benefit MS and nobody else.
Probably the next thing in the MS EULA is;
Any SECURITY HOLE bundled with the SOFTWARE PRODUCT is the property of Microsoft and protected by copyright laws and international copyright threaties.
When a vulnerability shows up on http://securityfocus.com or the like, specifying a vulnerability in a Microsoft product, e.g. "A special crafted URL will overwrite your files" and then there is no information on what the special crafted URL look like, and there is no fix available from Microsoft or others, do you feel more secure?
Perhaps you could block the request in your packet-filtering system, or at least log it, but without knowing what to look for... what do you do?
And, knowning that experienced black-hat crackers also reads securityfocus and sites like this, they don't need anything more than this information (there is a buffer overflow in IIS... ) and then they have a target for what to do the next couple of hours. It's a competition you know. The best crack wins. Giving away exploits doesn't give much credit to the cracker copying it, but the first one to discover a "new" one, gets a lot of attention...
We need to understand the psychology of what makes a crack worthwile, a published exploit every script kiddie can duplicate, but also can the sysadmins countermeasure this fast (provided that they read the right forums as all sysadms should!)
But a hint of a possibility in a not published exploit gives the black-hats something to compeete for, who is the first one to make the best crack? And the poor end-user is not even knowing what to look for...
Second. published exploits are easy to scan for... known, but not published exploits will fluctuate in their signature.
E.g. special HTTP GET request to look for in the logs... you just scan your logs for exactly the string published in the exploit. (or put it in your packet-filter) a not published exploit will result in several different cracks, using the same vulnerability, but probably vary a bit in the exploit methodology, making it harder to scan for.
Would you dare to use your car if the factory sent you a note that "it has a fault", but not providing any details of the fault? It could be anything...
"Information anarchy"? And yet no post I've seen so far challenges the terminology as being inherently useless PR. Microsoft is damned good at dreaming up push-button catch-phrases that become subconciously accepted even by it's detractors as viable descriptors. It's the same sort of tactic that convinces people that EULA's are *actual laws*, when they're nothing of the sort - insofar as I know no court of law has even supported them as valid contractual agreements.
The phrase "information anarchy" has no coherent meaning other than that defined through MS's statement, and even there it seems to mean "any public publication of security weaknesses in MS products". Yet MS pushes the phrase over and over again in the attempt to link security reports with the word "anarchy" in the hopes that the average idiot will associate publication of flaws in MS software with irresponsible, undemocratic behavior.
Most of us geeks catch this sort of thing right off (e.g., "viral software") but notice - this one slipped under the wire with nary a comment that I could see.
One of MS's greatest weapons is the introduction of language which precludes one mindset and reinforces another - social programming at it's finest. Accepting the phrase "information anarchy" as valid substantiates the idea that such a thing actually exists, even if you argue that the security reports don't constitute an example of this nebulous "information anarchy".
There's no such animal. It's a buzzword with zero meaning other than a poor attempt to lay the blame for MS security holes on people other than those employed at MS.
Perhaps we should retaliate with terminology of our own that's intimately associated with a Microsoft argument or product. Any ideas (other than the "Microsoft worms" phrase of some days back)?
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?