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3Com to Buy Security Flaws?

Posted by Hemos on from the trying-new-models dept.

Zonoprh writes "CNET reports that 3Com's TippingPoint division is starting a pay-for-vulnerability program called the Zero Day Initiative. It seems 3Com plans to use the vulnerabilities they purchase to fuel signatures in their protection technologies, in addition to sharing the same data with other security vendors. From the article, "Money has increasingly become an incentive for hackers. Program's such as TippingPoint's offer a legitimate way for them to get paid for their bug hunting. There is also an underground market for vulnerabilities. Cybercriminals pay top dollar for previously undisclosed flaws that they can then exploit to break into computer systems, experts have said.""

3 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Good idea by dmurray14 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Much better way to deal with bugs, I'm surprised no one thought about this before. I guess the real test will be to see how they deal with the bugs they "buy"

  2. Are they building up Intellectual Property by uid000 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If they "buy" a software vulnerability, and build a signature for it, will somebody else who builds a signature (e.g., snort) for it be violating some IP right like copyright or patent?

  3. Re:Simple solution by kfg · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Frank Abagnale was the Kevin Mitnick of his time, and although he was a master counterfeiter his chief skill was in "social engineering."

    Brazen, fearless and with a personality to charm the socks right off of you, if he had stuck to cons he might well never have been caught (bad paper leaves a paper trail). Having once caught him keeping him caught proved to be a bit of a problem and on one occasion he simply talked his way out of prison

    It isn't listed in his IMDB entry (which he has by virtue of being the author of Catch Me if You Can), but he once made an appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and so impressed me that it is one of the few Tonight Show interviews that has always stuck with me.

    I haven't read the book, so it may well be the blurb that is at fault, but certain discrepencies between the book blurb at Amazon and things he said in that interview suggest to me that he's never really given up the con game and we'll never know what is the truth and what is the self generated myth about him.

    He should have gone into politics.

    KFG