Cache Servers Keeping Exploit Code Alive

1960's architecture writes, "At last some evidence that exploit code is hiding on servers used to cache website content. According to Techworld, Israeli outfit Finjan has come up with evidence that real exploits have hidden on cache servers used by large search engines, effectively extending their life for periods of weeks after the original website had been taken down. The exploits detailed are from 2003-2004, but the principle would still apply to any exploit website around today, and any cache servers used by any one of the three unnamed search engines. It's almost literally malware 'life after death.'"

Comments

How about fixing the problem instead?

[jZnat]

How about fixing the problem that's exploited rather than try to hide the problem's existence in the first place?

More needs to be done

[nickheart]

... and think of all those old hard disks with exploits on them. We need to go to the dump and degauss all of them, NOW! C'mon people, this is a security issue.

gimme a break, a cache is a cache, it's supposed to have old information, even if that information is wrong, or destructive.

Re:news to me

[geoffspear]

If by "like the live sites" you mean "not at all", then yes, they're scanned exactly the same.

Security through censorship. Wonderful.

[Kadin2048]

Exactly. The people behind this "discovery" seem to think that the best way to combat security holes is to go after the exploit demonstration code, rather than, say, actually fixing the problem.

That's what's really frightening; that there are exploits that have been in the wild and in the hands of the black hats for three years, which still have not been patched.

Those "exploit sites" are not the enemy here. If anything, they're a powerful tool that lets the 'good guys' be on equal footing, or near equal footing, with the bad guys, who are probably trading exploits around in IRC channels regardless of whether they're on the WWW or cached or not.

It's kinda like Polio and Malaria...

[Goldenhawk]

This article has (here on /.) already raised the question "Why can't we stamp out the viral code from archives?" Well, let's take a lesson here from biology.

The human race took two different solutions to polio and malaria. (I'm not a doctor, so forgive any minor inaccuracies.)

With malaria, we took the "stamp out the viral archive" approach. We tried to kill the carriers - the mosquitos. If we can eliminate all the mosquitos that carry the infection (like eliminating old internet caches), nobody will have to worry about getting infected. Well, guess what - it didn't work. Malaria is a HUGE problem in many third-world countries, routinely killing a million Africans a year and costing $12 BILLION annually in Africa alone (see last week's WashPost Magazine article for details; registration required: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/10/04/AR2006100400127.html). The problem? You simply can't squash all the bugs. Only recently has attention turned to developing an artificial method of immunity from the disease, so that the bugs won't matter (at least, from that perspective).

With polio, we took the approach that preventing infection was the key. We innoculated EVERYONE, so that even if the virus surfaced, it wouldn't cause infections. It's proven to be a largely effective solution, with only a few periodic pockets of infection occurring in remote parts of Africa where the youngest are not innoculated afresh. And that problem is fairly easy to control.

Same thing here. Forget the archives. That's naive. Instead, focus on better immunity.

Almost literally?

[tobiasly]

It's almost literally malware 'life after death.'

But is it almost literally, or literally almost? What would make it true life after death? (Literally)

Like Joe Rogan said

[Lord Kano]

Trying to get something off of the internet is like trying to get pee out of a pool.

Why not just patch the vulnerabilities? If publishers would fix their shortcomings then it wouldn't be an issue.

LK