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Symantec Claims They Knew About Slammer In Advance
truthsearch writes "Wired is reporting 'Symantec claims to have identified the Slammer worm that ravaged the Internet during the last weekend of January hours before anyone else did. Symantec then shared the information only with select customers, leaving the rest of the global community to get slapped around by Slammer.' I'm not bothered I didn't know Slammer was coming, but Symantec has a moral responsibility to inform the public if it thinks millions will be affected." It isn't clear to me how Symantec could know, hours in advance, about a worm which took ten minutes to spread throughout the entire Internet, unless they had something to do with its release. Update: 02/14 16:54 GMT by M : Wired has their math wrong; Symantec apparently had at most 20-30 minutes of early warning. Symantec claims in this press release that they discovered the worm "hours before it began rapidly propagating".
Do you honestly believe that all the viruses come from joe sixpack sitting in his basement with nothing better to do?
thats what makes the extra special account worth it.if they told everyone, then whats the point in paying for the extra notice?
(not that I agree with not telling everyone, that just seems to be the why)
Just wait til next week!
HA HA HA HA HA [silence]
HA HA HA HA HA [silence]
HA HA HA HA HA [silence]
I knew about Slammer in 1988. (Take a look at Jim Brown's character.)
How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
Since when does Symmantec have a moral obligation to do anything? They're a corporation. Their service is to detect and prevent network attacks. If you are willing to PAY for the service, then you get the benefits of it. If not, then it sucks to be you. Ford's service is making cars. Are you saying that Ford has a moral obligation to give me one, even though I haven't paid for it?
OK, I don't get it... How does Symantec going "We knew all about it but we didn't tell you" make Symantec look good in any way? I know I get annoyed when people behave like that... So anyone have a thought on exactly how this benefits Symantec?
.: Max Romantschuk
Sorry, but that is not a similar situation. Not even close.
From the article:
"According to Symantec spokesman Yunsun Wee, Symantec issued an alert about Slammer to DeepSight Threat Management System subscribers "at approximately 9 p.m. PST on Friday, Jan. 24."
Most of the rest of the Internet didn't spot Slammer until shortly after midnight EST on Saturday, Jan. 25th."
Accounting for timezone differences between EST and PST, would this not make the two times much closer to each other?
Heck, Microsoft released a patch to fix this problem in June of 2002. Windows sysadmins had 6 months notice that it was a problem.
I don't mean to sound like a troll or the least bit insensitive, but if the Windows sysadmins aren't keeping their servers patched then that's the sysadmin's fault. The finger of blame should be pointed right at the mirror. Keeping their servers updated and safe is their JOB, unless they have a security specialist, in which case it's their job.
This sounds like Wired trying to stir up a controversy from scratch. Besides, what would have been the impact of them posting a warning a few hours earlier? If an admin saw the notice before the widespread nature of Slammer was known, would they instantly apply patches that they hadn't already installed for one reason or another? I doubt it...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I have wondered why a lot of these Microsoft-worms never seem to have a destructive payload. If you imagine a script-kiddie working hard in his mom's basement, you'd think he'd add a payload of some sort.
(hell, if I had the inclenation and the time to create a virus, I'd atleast change the Windows statup
It's almost like these Microsoft-worms were desingned to create panic and purchasing action, but no legalally actionable damage.
Just a rambeling thought.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
I fix a lot of systems (windows based) and the difference is you can actually run software without being root in UNIX. I would bet over 1/2 the software out there won't run on Windows unless you have admin rights. A girls computer I had to repair (for the 3rd fscking time) has this POS Cattery software (Delphi, give me a break) and it cannot connect to it's JDataStore since her user doesn't have admin rights. So I'm screwed, I have to give her rights for that and about 6 other programs that won't run. I cannot believe the piss poor planning (any planning MS?) that went into Windows.
MS Linux like OS X would be good. Windows isn't that bad of a UI it's just a piss poor backend that causes problems.
So explain to me again how they knew about it before anyone else? -kaos
I don't see why people expect companies to donate information that costs them to find. They could've used this info in two ways, the way I see it. First, is to share it to their corporate customers who pay to have this kind of early warning. Second, release it to the media, CERT, and other organizations and make sure they "advertise" that Symantec found it first.
So they chose the first. Big deal. Do you really think even a majority of these sysadmins would have firewalled their MS SQL server hours before it would be infected? Doubtful. If they didn't apply the patch from July of '02, then they're not going to immediately respond in a few hours to patch an impending threat.
At least from a "We're a company, we exist to make money" standpoint. Symantec maintains that privledged list precisely so they can make money - they offer a "tell you before I tell anyone else" service, and people are obviously willing to pay for that.
Besides, I highly doubt Symantec is the cause of slammer, and because of that, they don't have any moral obligation to let anybody know about it. On top of that, we're talking about a matter of hours, not days or weeks. They probably told their clients "Uh, we think something's coming, so watch out". I highly doubt they would have had specifics.
Not trying to flame here or anything, but let's be a little realistic. If anyone's to blame, it should be Microsoft, for releasing the buggy program in the first place, or the sysadmins for not applying the paches, yadda yadda yadda.
Symantec issued an alert about Slammer to DeepSight Threat Management System subscribers "at approximately 9 p.m. PST on Friday, Jan. 24." Most of the rest of the Internet didn't spot Slammer until shortly after midnight EST on Saturday, Jan. 25th.
For those of you who don't know the difference, EST is 3 hours ahead of PST. Thus DeepSight identified Slammer at about the same time as the 'rest of the Internet'"According to Symantec spokesman Yunsun Wee, Symantec issued an alert about Slammer to DeepSight Threat Management System subscribers "at approximately 9 p.m. PST on Friday, Jan. 24."
Most of the rest of the Internet didn't spot Slammer until shortly after midnight EST on Saturday, Jan. 25th."
Uhh...that's about the same time isn't it Sparky?
I can bring mysql, oracle or postgresql down as easily as SQL server. You can get root in a poorly secured linux box, or hardlink out of a poorly configured chroot jail, just as easily as you can get a process to run with administrative rights on a poorly secured NT domain.
There are as many 'hotfixes' and 'service packs' for linux based software, they just call them patches and releases.
Linux just isnt ubiquitous enough to be a worthwhile target. Yet.
All the bragging and dipshittery that uninformed OS fanboys are doing will bite them in the ass in a big way if linux is adopted into the mainstream.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Through acquisition, Symantec has access to several firms that have deployed "sensors" in many locations around the 'net. These sensors relay actvity information back to a central location.
Symantec correlates this information, and determines threats. They then relay this information to customers of the subscription service.
This may be what they are referring to.
Probably not. Those forewarned took it seriously because they pay for the service. If Symantec had said that a huge attack was imminent and to block the port and patch your SQL servers, how many people do you think would have listened? Of those who listened, how many of those have processes in place so that the requisite network or software changes would have required approval that would have come too late to do any good?
The people who paid for the warning are going to take it very seriously, but aside from that, I would wager that there would be enough doubt about the validity that measures wouldn't have been taken anyway. Patching the server has the obvious implication for many mission critical databases of a potential restart and potential for undesired change in functionality, so patching in many cases would require a testbed server and evaluation, which this warning provided insufficient time for. Blocking the port, or disabling that part of SQL server, for those with it enabled without needing it, means they need to understand what it does or does not do for them. If they already knew, they would have disabled it sooner, so you can't say they would immediately realize and shut it down.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I see two possibilities:
1) It was done for hack value, not vandalism.
2) With how many Windows computers there are out there, a simple worm has the ability to cause more than enough trouble.
As for Slammer not having a payload, that's because it was designed to fit in a single 505-byte UDP packet. There wasn't room for a payload.
Ford's service is making cars. Are you saying that Ford has a moral obligation to give me one, even though I haven't paid for it?
No - get the analogies right. If I, as a car servicing firm, knew of a part in a Ford car that could fail and cause the car to go off the road at random and I only let my best customers know, I would be sued for screwing around with peoples lives.
Not that I have any sympathy for either MS or Sympantec - Symantec gets to make money off the loopholes in MS's operating system in a strange almost parasitic relationship. The only thing that isn't clear to me is which company is the host...
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
In order for Symantec to have a "moral obligation" you must first assume that Symantec has Morals to begin with. They do not. It's that simple.
-- DuckWing
My Magic Eight Ball predicts of a future exploit of a buffering problem in Microsoft software.
How can you know this stuff Magic Eight Ball!!
Ummm..."shortly after midnight EST" is pretty damn close to "approximately 9 p.m. PST"! It doesn't sound like Symantec had much advance knowledge at all.
I've always noticed that too. The fact that there's never any large-scale loss really does encourage the idea that its not your garden-variety blackhat. When I was a kid, your computer contracting a virus meant that you could kiss all your files goodbye. These days, it means your connection will be lagged and maybe some e-mail sent. All ILOVEYOU even did was delete some jpgs and mp3s. I'm surprised that none of these worms don't wait for an hour or two(for the computer to finish spreading) then wipe the machine or something - or maybe begin spewing the contents of the SQL database onto the 'net (heaven forbid credit card #'s be in there).
I always say when something like this happens - at least the attacker wasn't going for raw damage.
It's a marketing gimmick to get less savvy IT managers to think that going with Symantec will get them ahead of the game. They're burning themselves twice: they'll alienate the infosec community that rightfully believes that knowledge of a potential devastating exploit gained in advance of its use should be shared, and they'll make very poor relationships with customers who fall for this kind of marketing and never have their expectations met down the road.
So long, michael. Don't let the door hit you...
That would be like having the US selling WMD technology to other countries and then invading them
later for having it. What responsibly sane organization would do that?
It's a fairly fundamental difference.
I would think that they would be more careful about raising people's suspicions about their prior knowlege of absurdly fast propagating worms.
Maybe they are believers that 'any publicity is good publicity' -- even in their business.
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Geeky modern art T-shirts
If all copies of MS products were magically replaced with *nix versions tomorrow, we'd see *nix oriented viruses the day after tomorrow. It isn't the label on the box, it's the popularity of the software.
Virus writers are like vandals -- nobody is going to make graffiti where it doesn't get lots of public exposure.
load "windows7"
Symantec.
The same Symantec who's Norton Anti-virus product is prominently featured in a rash of spams in my inbox?
The same Symantec who claims to follow up on reports of this to spamwatch@symantec.com? That never seems to lead to any sort of actions?
The same Symantec who just changed their auto-renewal to cost people more money IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RENEWAL CYCLE?
Huh, who'd'a thunk it?
Glad I use somebody else's anit-virus software.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Another important point is this:
The worm spread around the entire globe in minutes. And Symmantec didn't know about the worm in advance, they are simply saying that they knew about it before anyone else. (Which other posters have pointed out is BS - apparently journalists and corporate managers don't understand time zones)
Which leaves us with this simple fact: even if a sysadmin had gotten and read symmantec's message immediately, it is unlikely they would have had time to block the port and/or patch their server in time anyway! They may have already been hit in the time it took them to read the virus alert.
The fact that symmantec noticed it was happening is hardly surprising, they make money by detecting and stopping viruses. Of course they would notice when a ton of traffic on a certain port started inundating the internet.
This whole story is a load of crap. Hopefully wired will be more do a little more research in the future into the stories they display, but somehow I doubt it.
// harborpirate
// Slashbots off the starboard bow!
Last time I checked, Linux/Unix dwarfed Windows in the enterprise. Windows has a majority on the desktop, but it is only *one of many* players amongst servers and is not the most widely used.
:)
Time for a new theory
Maybe you should get *your* analogies straight. Everyone is acting like Symantec did something horribly wrong. Let's not forget that there has been a patch available for this since july of last year. So if we must make analogies, how about this one:
I, as a mechanic, know that cars made by Ford had a recall (say for something like tires...). Now, of course it's in my best interest to inform *my* customers, but am I "morally obligated" to stop every passer-by on the street who's driving a Ford and tell them?
The point is, Microsoft admitted there was an issue and fixed it six months ago. Why is it Symantec's obligation to remind us all to secure our servers?
do not read this line twice.
Symantec does not have a moral responsibility to inform the public. Symantec isn't a publicly funded corporation, or a government agency.
I think you're confusing moral responsibility and legal responsibility.
Unix/Linux dominate the market for servers and databases. Oracle is the most widely used database the last time I checked and SQL Server was third. Unix/Linux *is* ubiquitous for servers. Microsoft is the niche player and it is Microsoft that is producing softare so buggy that it is hobbling the internet.
Network Operations had to manually disconnect MANY servers which were just saturating the network. After doing this we got calls days later from people saying "My students are complaining that they can't access my server, any idea why this is?" So if you're expecting that every server has some crack squad of administrators scouring the net to make sure it's updated to the fullest - well sorry, it takes some people days to notice that their server isn't even on the network anymore.
I mean you'd think people would turn on CNN and see SQL WORM RAVAGES INTERNET, and think, gee don't I have a machine running an SQL server, maybe I should check up on that? But no.
The reality is that there was a patch available for this months before and nobody bothered to install it, I don't think a few more hours would have made much of a difference at least where I work.
While attempts with viruses and worms may be more due to populartiy, there are other factors that result in an insecure system.
Just saying that viruses and worms are more popluar because of Microsoft's success is mearly a cop-out. Their success should be a benefit to their security (more resources should be dedicated to it), not an excuse for it.
sin(6cos(r)+5A)
I saw this first hand. When Opaserv variants were coming out almost weekly last fall, Symantec was very slow to acknowledge their existance. A few people I know sent them executables of a new variant on October 19. Finally, on October 23, they announced they "Discovered" it...4 DAYS AFTER WE SENT IT TO THEM! Those Symantec liars didn't even tell us that they discovered it, but they're working on a fix. No, they sat on the virus for 4 days! (Want proof? Check out Symantec's Oct 23 discover day for brasil.pif, here, and compare that with the Oct 19 date that many of us first noticed that virus on this discussion sire here.) And of course, following true to Symantec policy, they claimed to have released a fix either the day of discovery or the the next day...to show they're working hard for their customers.
Stupid liars.
Who do you think is writing these sophisticated viruses and worms? Do really believe that the hundreds of new viruses that get released every month is because of some bored hackers who have nothing better to do? There are many stories of "Men-in-Black" style approaches to out-of-work developers in countries with a large high tech community. Someone shows up at your door with a big bag of money and no identity and asks you to write a particular type of virus, you might be inclined to take the money and not ask too many questions. It's called "Creating the Market".
It's safe to say by your post that you haven't.
To post the assertion that these guys have anything to the propagation and dissemination of viruii is retarded - not only do they have to contend with regular build issues, feature requests, etc. - but they also have to keep up with the dozens of virii released into the wild on a weekly basis. The heuristics involved in developing the software necessary to *fix* an already infected (sometimes by multiple virii) is pretty impressive. There's no *good* reason why any of these engineers would intentionally create more work for themselves -- they don't need any.
Additionally, they aren't the only game in town as far as anti-virus software. They would be out of the fame in a New York minute if they were ever found to be involved in disseminating virii, intentionally or not.
Please turn off your computer and go back to your "X-Files" reruns.
P.S. - The coolest thing about the interview was when one of the Senior Engineers showed me the Quarantine Room, where they research different virii and repairing the damage.
- learn to swim.
Please stop equating/comparing/relating every single fucking thing to 09/11. It's only a similar situation in that they knew but didn't tell anyone. What if i knew the exact time you would be born, but i didn't tell your mom? Similar situation, right? What if i knew how long the cookies were going to last before you bought them, but i didn't tell anyone? Similar situation, right?
The plural of "virus" is "viruses". Aside from that, Latin plurals end in "i", not "ii". For example, "magus" becomes "magi", not "magii". The notion of Latin plurals ending in "ii" probably comes from such words as "radii" (plural of "radius"). The reason "radii" has two "i"s is because "radi-us-" becomes "radi-i-".
"In antiquity the word virus had not yet acquired, of course, its current scientific meaning; rather it denoted something like toxicity, venom, a poisonous, deleterious, or unpleasant agent or principle, or poison in the abstract or general sense. [...] Nouns denoting entities that are countable pluralize (book, books); nouns denoting noncountable entities do not (except under special circumstances) pluralize (air, mood, valor). The term virus in antiquity appears to have belonged to the latter category, hence the nonexistence of plural forms." (taken from here) Also, "viri" is Latin for "men", so that's not it either. The word is "viruses".
I know i'm coming off like a jerk here, and normally i don't post just to criticise someone's spelling, but "virii" is a plague. It's because of mistakes like this that we have two words for "disc", and the bizarre spelling of "Thames" (i.e. people trying to make English correspond to its Latin/Greek roots). Anyway, i just thought i'd point that out. That word really bothers me (which i guess is somewhat sad).
Sources:/ v/virus.html
- http://dictionary.reference.com/help/faq/language
- http://www.perl.com/language/misc/virus.html
PS: Otherwise an interesting post, heh.
"What was the names of all those worms produced for apache again?"
Let me assist you in finding your clue: You can't remember the names of those worms because they had no discernible impact compared to Code Red or Slammer.
Everyone knows about Code Red and Slammer because they were frightening worms that caused a massive amount of damage. Hell, Gartner is telling people to not use IIS and migrate away because it is so damn buggy!
People do not hate IIS because it isn't *cool* they hate it because it is shit software that has caused millions and millions in damages.
People say "virii", not because they think they are speaking latin, but because they think it
:-)
;-)
sounds good. They think it expresses what they want to mean.
Look at the whole damned French language for an example of what happens when people spend a few centuries speaking what they think is latin.
So the problem is not that you are right or wrong, but rather, that the people you would like to persuade do not care for your argument.
It's like the people who wish media would stop using "hacker", or that slashdotters would use "GNU/Linux" when they say "Linux"... The argument is sound, and compelling, but is completely lost on those it seeks to influence! Not only do they not care, they actually prefer to stick with their chosen usage! You'd do just as well to argue that "virus" should be a mass noun or a possessive state of being: It has virus. (Like "milk" -- en français, il vaut mieux qu'on dit du virus).
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for "virii" to go away -- these people don't even CARE that some English words have latin roots!
Hey, that makes me wonder if there is any other language whose plurals are formed with a final -i or -ii?
Now, if someone DOES buy the argument that latin usage should influence English, I wonder if it is important to note that "virus" in latin refers to "poison"... I'm standing by my argument that it should be a mass plural, not a count plural!
It is easy to make the case against "virii" from the latin "virus" -- it is not "virius" therefore not "virii" in the plural.
My advice is to write and speak with proper usage, correct others when they ask you to proofread their copy, and not expect anyone else to upgrade their literacy in
What's next on your agendum?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.