The Fine Line Between Security and Usability

SkiifGeek writes to ask, "Where should vendors be required to draw the line when supporting deprecated file formats and technology? In a recent case independent security researcher cocoruder found a critical bug with the JET engine, via the .mdb (Access) file format, he reported it to Microsoft, but Microsoft's response came as a surprise to him — it appears that Microsoft is not inclined to fix a critical arbitrary code execution vulnerability with a data technology that is at the heart of a large number of essential business and hobby applications."

Comments

In my opinion

[moogied]

Microsoft is a company, there goal is profit. Not security, not saving the enviroment, not making linux geeks smile. They want money. As every company on earth does. That is where the line is drawn. Exactly where it becomes unprofitable.

Re:In my opinion

[jmv]

That's what really bothers me about the libertarian-neocon view on corporations. You have at the same time:

1) Companies are only there to make a profit and don't have to care about things like environment, security, ...

2) Regulation is evil, let the companies do whatever they like and the market will sort it out.

Logical conclusion from 1) and 2) is that we're pretty much screwed and back to some kind of feudalism. And no, most people do not vote with their wallets and the Market will not sort it out magically (otherwise, CO2 emissions would already be on the way down and there wouldn't be all these environmental problems).

Re:In my opinion

[mrbluze]

Microsoft is a company, there goal is profit. Not security, not saving the enviroment, not making linux geeks smile.

As correct as you are, there does not need to be a fine line between usability and security. There needs to be (and of course there will be) an ongoing evolution in software design to offer usability without compromising security. I reckon it won't be a long time before any software program that gets run in userspace (or any space) has to go out on bended knee requesting to do anything - forced to abide by a security policy by default which limits its access. I don't mean the old broad-brush users/groups/device permissions etc. model that is everywhere now, but stuff like "only allowed to read from this folder, only allowed to talk to this or that application, etc." with very low level behaviour controls.

I don't think this needs to result in a "the mouse pointer wants to move, confirm/deny" scenario, but that the software designers need to submit with their product a security policy within which their applicaton has to function. The user should be able to very easily browse this policy and see what the program expects to be able to do, and override things, such as "access the internet using HTTPS at port 3232 to server www.phonehome.net" or sloppy things like "read contents of /etc recursively" instead of "read contents of /etc/mostlyharmlesswidget/config".

I know things like this already exist and there is a limited implementation of it, but to me that just confirms the point that it is the obvious next step.

Re:In my opinion

[fm6]

Microsoft is a company, there goal is profit.

So what? You think there's no connection between security and profit? Next you'll be telling me that Ford's goal is profit, not reliable cars. Of course, nowadays they have neither...

This whole discussion is based on a faulty premise, that MS is leaving its Access users without a fix. They have a fix, and they've had it for some time: stop using MDB format and convert your databases to a data engine that isn't a POS. They've deprecated MDB and Jet Engine. That means they're telling their customers "Don't use that stuff any more, it's faulty." The fact that they continue to support customers who ignore the deprecation doesn't change that.

There is the little detail that Access itself is a POS. But that's designed in — not much they can do about that.

This is not news to me...

[rickb928]

... that Microsoft doesn't want to fix Jet.

They'd rather you re-wrote your app and used MSDE, or something with .NET in it.

Not a lot of money in supporting the db engine they give away.

And this is not the first time. Does no one remember they tried to Kill Jet in XP -and- Vista?

A pox on them all. I hope we re-write our app in mySQL.

Patching one hole in a pegboard

[Volante3192]

So to fire off this vulnerability, you have to run an .mdb file you found from "somewhere." Never mind these things could have embedded VB macros and other controls that could wreak havoc.

Why not just start running installs you find from "somewhere?"

Access and mdb are insecure as it is when you start running untrusted files; should we expect all of those to go away at the expence of neutering the key selling point: stupid easy to do anything with?

Re:why do people

[kelnos]

Unfortunately, with Access, it's not about the database itself, but about the GUI tools that many people find easy to use...

It's not just small businesses

[RipSlider]

No matter what is written above, it's not just "Small business" which use Jet. I'm under an NDA(s), so won't name names, but lets say that, in the course of the last 18 months, I have worked in 1x Top 5 Bank and 2x top 10 financial services houses, in the UK, that would collapse if they loose their Access Databases within one week. ( Guess what my firm was brought in to do?) It's a similar situation to the household name that most people in the UK and US have some direct or indirect monies held in that currently has more than 700 staff in my company working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to get all their data into a new data ware house after a rather worrying period where their main DB went down. What was the DB? It was a massively hacked about version of a CRM package that a developer got off a coverdisc ( PCPro magazine to be exact ), 6 years ago. Here's the thing: Big companies get into the same messes as small companies. If you truely believe that ALL of the top companies are using Oracle DB's, SOA architectures and data warehouses for mining purposes, your living in a dream world. Working as a solution architect that is meeting 2-3 major, as in top 250, clients a month, and looking at their issues, and the mess that they've got in to, I would be suprised if Microsoft manage to hold their "We're not going to fix it" position for long. Fact is, as soon as CIO's get stressed, they start to shout, and they'll shout at Microsoft if they feel that there is an issue. Remember that a lot of the major firms have 10 and 15 year support contracts with Microsoft, each of them bespoke. If one of them demands a fix, it will immediately be made available to all of the others on bespoke support contracts. At which point there is little reason to hold it back from the other major buyers, and so it cascades down the chain.

Re:why do people

[TheRaven64]

Access is not a database, it's a RAD tool for data-drive apps. You use Access when you want to quickly create a GUI for processing data (well, now you'd probably write a web app, but in the '90s it was the thing to use). Once you've done this, you progressively add features to your simple tool. Eventually, you have something that sprawls over thousands of lines of unmaintainable code, depends on Access, and is vital to your company.