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Does Open Source Encourage Rootkits?
An anonymous reader writes "NetworkWorld reports that security vendor McAfee places the blame for increased numbers of rootkits squarely on the shoulders of the open source community. Others, however, do not agree. From the article: 'Rootkit.com's 41,533 members do post rootkit source code anonymously, then discuss and share the open source code. But it's naïve to say the Web site exists for malicious purposes, contends Greg Hoglund, CEO of security firm HBGary and operator of Rootkit. "It's there to educate people," says Hoglund [...] It's a great resource for anti-virus companies and others. Without it, they'd be far behind in their understanding of rootkits."'"
Simply because they use a domain name and the site is known does not make the information malicious. If you don't think rotating sites on rotating server exist to share compromised media and discussion about server cracking then you don't know anything. Rookit.com is open and out there, but the malicious people don't just stop here. Removing rootkit.com off the face of the earth would do zero to stop server compromises and rootkits.
And don't get me started about the quote..." make it advisable "to throw the computer away" if you want to be sure you got rid of the rootkit". Talk about scare tactics...sheesh. How often do you see a BIOS rootkit? And if you did, why don't you just reflash the BIOS? Or is this a sinister plan to make companies throw out old hardware to buy new so they buy new faster stuff to run Vista. That's it! It's all Microsoft's fault. Amazing how fast we can go do the jump off the bridge path.
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McAfee places the blame for increased numbers of rootkits squarely on the shoulders of the open source community
That's like saying Edison and Tesla are to blame every time someone gets electocuted.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
As much as Closed Source prevents them.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Full disclosure is the best way to force the holes that make the rootkits possible to be addressed sooner rather than later. McAfee should be grateful that these things are getting posted where they can use them to make their offerings more secure. Instead, they come off as a bunch of whiners.
I mean, how is this any different than say all the resources on how to make bombs on the internet (oh no, I just got my traffic flagged since I think it passes through AT&T networks). Anyways, just because the info on how to make weapons is online does not directly lead to people using that info for bad things. The people who truly want to do bad things will get their info from elsewhere. This is just a bad marketing attempt to screw people out of freedom of information/speech.
Wow. A security vendor, who has a critical financial interest in creating FUD, claims that disclosing security flaws creates security problems. Forgive me if my eyeballs don't explode with surprise.
Security by obscurity has been proven time and again not to work. Nobody would find a security hole if it didn't exist. Likewise, if one does exist, if one person can find it so can someone else. The responsibility lies squarely with the developers.
Time for a bad analogy (seeing as how this is Slashdot and all): If the door of your house/apartment/room/basement was made of balsa wood rather than a decent hardwood (or a reinforced steel-belted Faraday Cage for you tinfoil-hatters), it would only be a matter of time before someone worked this out. And regardless of whether they boot your front door in and make off with your home entertainment system, or simply leave you a note that says "This door is so thin I can hear you whacking off to Buffy reruns from across the hall (by the way your dinner's getting cold, son)" you can bet if one person can work it out, so can someone else. And the next person might not just leave you a note. So, if the door is your responsibility you better fix it ASAP, or risk the consequences. And if not, you better fry the ass of whoever is responsible, or you'll still risk the consequences yourself.
Landlord won't give you a secure premises? Move out, and tell everyone about it. Or get a gun and a pit bull. Or barricade the door and use the kitchen window for access. Or all three. Windows has more holes than half a dozen slices of Jarlesberg? Switch to a more secure O/S, and add your voice to the complaints. Or install malware detection/removal tools. Or lock it down behind a firewall. Or all three. But don't just stick your head in the sand and hope nobody will notice, that approach just doesn't work.
Mod McAfee down -1, Troll.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
I always find it interesting how they blame open source users for viruses and spyware, or in this case, rootkits. Last time I checked, isn't it the Microsoft (R) Windows that has the problems with these things? How much malicious code do you see for Linux, BSD, etc... I'm sure the answer is much less than for Windows.
When there's a problem in the open source community, they blame each other. When there's a problem in the proprietary source community, they blame the open source.
They really have no argument against the rootkit sites. I mean, imagine if terrorists were talking about secret terrorist plans on a certain forum/wiki on some public website. Do you really think law enforcement would shut down the site and ignore it? I doubt it, it's out in the open, so police would want to read as much of it as possible so they can learn and be prepared. If they shut down the site, everything becomes secret and they have no useful information to work with.
Same goes for the rootkits. If it's public, security companies can study it and learn from it and prepare for the worst. If they shut it down, they won't even know it exists until it's already hit some companies.
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There is another side to this, too. It's like bacterial conjugation. If there are certain bits of DNA (code) in the wild that do certain things, that code can be passed around and inserted into other organisms (rootkits) to help them survive. If they were forced underground, it would make it harder for both groups - for the rootkit makers to create better products and for McAfee to track the rootkit makers.
That's not to say that spreading this information is a bad thing, but you have to realize that McAfee is right about one thing - it does help the rootkit makers in addition to helping the anti-rootkit people.
freedom encourages all sorts of things, some of them bad.
Live with it, it's better than the alternative.
The problem is that people don't understand that the founding fathers intended individuals to have the weapons necessary to fight a full fledged war with a world power. That was the point of the 2nd amendment. Suggesting that people have the right to bear arms for the purpose of hunting, sport, or to defend your home against burglers would have made as much sense to them as making a law today that guarantees the right to drink water, breath air, and eat a hamburger.
Let me say, speaking as a developer, the rootkit.com site is a give and take system for both rootkit and anti-rootkit developers alike. As new anti-rootkit software is released, the community evaluates it, figures out the weaknesses and publishes the results. This allows rootkit developers to gain new insights into the inner workings of anti-rootkit software and Windows itself. In turn anti-rootkit developers learn from their mistakes and can come up with new ways to overcome their weaknesses. Without each other, the types of protection offered would stagnate until some unknown programmer creates a very nasty rootkit that nobody is prepared for. It's the people that aren't publishing their source code that you really need to worry about. Because they are only interested in one thing, owning you.
Said government being a world power.
-- Too lazy to get a lower UID.