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Microsoft Invites Black Hats into Vista
gtzpower writes "Microsoft is inviting hackers to 'Take Your Best Shot' at Vista. 'You need to touch it, feel it,' Andrew Cushman, Microsoft's director of security outreach, said during a talk at the Black Hat computer-security conference. 'We're here to show our work.'" From the article: "A security team with oversight of every Microsoft product — from its Xbox video game console to its Word program for creating documents — has broad authority to block shipments until they pass security tests. The company also hosts two internal conferences a year so some of the world's top security experts can share the latest research on computer attacks." Essentially a tie-in with an article we discussed yesterday.
aren't they already freaking there?!
ed
...I was going to point out the dupe, but now the editors have started doing it for us!
"Essentially a tie-in with an article we discussed yesterday."
Argh.
They invite hackers to take their best shot?
Why not just PAY the hackers to do their best at breaking it?
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
It could be a trap, you know. Bring in the black hats, and then brainwash them en masse so they don't want to use computers anymore but still buy many copies of MS products. No more security problems!
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
------------Now-----------
MS: "Have it Vista, hackers -- see if you can find any exploits"
BHs: *they go to it* "Nope, we don't have any security holes to report to you, it looks like Vista is impenetrable."
------------Vista is released-----------
MS: "What the heck? How can there be over twelve-thousand viruses for Vista on the day it's released?!"
BHs: "All your Vistas are belong to us! Thanks for your help Microsoft!"
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
The real black hats want it to be widely deployed before they start exploiting it.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
Please. Wash your hands after. We don't need those Vista cooties infecting everything else when you get back.
body massage!
Say, wait. If you've just given prerelease test copies of Vista to 3,000 "black hats"... and you're hoping they'll find bugs in them and report them back to you before Vista ships... I mean... how do you know that's what they're actually going to do?
What if some of these "black hats" look over Vista, find security bugs, keep them secret, go back to Microsoft and say "Whelp! Looks like Vista doesn't have any security holes at all!"; then wait for Vista to be released, and once it's out have a 0-day exploit that they can use in their offshore spam/spyware businesses and that no one else will even know exists until two years from now when a gray hat independently finds and publishes it and Microsoft finally fixes it?
I mean, of course that's a worst case scenario. But still, sometimes I think the old thinking on how the world of hackers works no longer really applies now that the primary motivating force is not pride, but money (in the form of sweet, sweet herbal viagra).
Consider: Microsoft gets to ride free hacks this time-->before the OS gets released. All that nice work, and they don't spend a dime. Interesting also because the release they gave out isn't a 'community-style' release. It makes one wonder if there's a 'Vista-call-home' component to it, too. Might be nice to know which of the coders actually tried to boot the thing, and then note their IP for future reference (or maybe to turn over to the NSA).
Still, with many noted reviewers in full belief that it's swiss cheese, it ought to be fun to see who eats it with crackers.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Security expert at Microsoft: "delay shipping Vista! We know it's ready otherwise, and people are clamoring for it, and stock prices depend on it, but I've discovered a security hole that is very serious!" Bill Gates: "I think you need a career change. Don't you have an assistant that says it's ready to ship as is? Let me talk to him..."
Currently hooked on AMP
Way to give the hackers a head start in probing the vulnerabilities of yet another microsoft product. Now we will be minmizing the time vista is out before MS recieves all these complaints of new viruses for their new OS.
Until MS figures out that permissions should be based on tasks, roles, and objects instead of who you log in as, all the stupid human tricks inthe world won't help them. It looks to me as though security in vista has the same thinking underpinning its design as NT/2K/XP - log in as admin to do admin things, and have permission to to anything.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Step #1. No open ports.
Step #2. No services running that are not absolutely essential.
The idea is to reduce the number of available avenues for attacks. Then you can focus on protecting/hardening the apps that are running. Such as (on Linux) putting them in a chroot jail.
"Now Vista, can you show us on this doll where the hacker touched you?
"Let the record show that the victim pointed to the KERNEL!"
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
r00t access?
Badass Resumes
It's one thing to invite hackers to "take their best shot" at breaking Vista. Even if you could trust them to report what they found (and hey, these black-hatters seem like nice, trustworthy guys, right?), how should they really know what the source contains?
...unless M$ is letting them look at the source itself -- but since I haven't heard any reports of Hell freezing over, I'm guessing that isn't happening.
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
Microsoft does not want black-hats to be cracking Vista, unless they're visiting a honeypot; for black-hats will keep what they know to themselves, and maybe create false trails. Rather, MS is indicating the grey- and white-hats that they're legally in the clear.
"Black Hat" is simply the name of the conference organiser, a cool name to be sure, but not an indication of who MS is reaching out to.
Wikileaks, no DNS
Invite the non-yet-assimilated into the cube, as to save on expenses.
Where were you when the voynix came?
I say good for them. At least Microsoft is attempting to release a secure product. Sure, it may still have its holes, but this is possibly the most constructive thing they could've done to increase the security of this OS. It's nice to see Microsoft actually paying attention to security as opposed to ignoring it and thinking all the [spy|mal|ad]ware will go away as we've seen them do for 20 years now.
So.. Have they been on a 10 year vacation or something?
End of line..
Imagine if this is a special version of Vista that keeps detailed logs that can somehow find their way back to MS. This could give them a nice window (no pun intended) into the black hats' methods. Probably the black hats would be all over that, though.
Or, imagine that the Vista they get is not the one the rest of us will get -- MS could, for example, purposely insert a bunch of security problems of varying severity and type to see how sophisticated the black hats are.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
The title has created some incredibly +5 funny comments, which is great for cheap entertainment, but the title is completely fucking wrong and now the flamethrowers must be unleashed.
From TFA:
After suffering embarrassing security exploits over the past several years, Microsoft Corp. is trying a new tactic: inviting some of the world's best-known computer experts to try to poke holes in Vista, the next generation of its Windows operating system.
Black hats are the bad guys, the guys actually hacking the computers for the sake of getting money and identities. The security experts are the good guys!
Maybe I'm overreacting, but that little change in the title rather important. It turns the story from "Microsoft showing all the efforts it is making to improve security" to "Microsoft so desperate to improve security they invite convicted hackers/spammers/international mafia to come hack vista!"
Of course, without said change, we have no +5 funny comments, and thus no real story to make fun of, because there's not much material to make fun of here, and nothing to critize about Microsoft because what they are doing in the article is what they should be doing. Nice Job Slashdot.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Can Microsoft every recreate the excitement that accompanied releases like Windows 3 or 95? Back then a large segment of the population, at least in the US, was still transitioning from no or limited personal computing to having and using their own machine, and they usually ran about $2000 for a leading edge one. Nowadays, just about anybody who can cough up $600 to Dell can have one on their doorstep in a few days, up and running, internet connected, and have been there, done that either before or at work. I can remember some year in the late 80's they called the ms-dos christmas, probably about when 386sx's became affordable.
Since there's nothing really new, just more of the same, can Microsoft do ANYTHING to recreate the old stock pumping marketing splashes of yore?
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Lol, what? Windows has had ACLS and auditing since NT4.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Am I the only one that sees this as a well-contained and rigged attempt at advertising security in high-control situations?
OF COURSE it's going to be difficult/improbably to hack the Vista box that MS provides to Black Hat. It's running no unnecessary processes and has all known security checks locked down.
What really matters (to consumers) is the following is whether or not it will be as secure when 15 different unnecessary and unupdated programs are running in the background.
No? Somehow, I'm not surprised.
Giving a little back does not make up for that.
Yep. Virtue is not measured by how heavily you honey the urine you feed your fellow human beings, it's measured by how little you piss in their cup to begin with.
Please stop stalking me, bro.