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MS To Share Early Flaw Data With Governments

Posted by kdawson on from the for-your-eyes-only dept.

Trailrunner7 writes "Microsoft today announced plans to share pre-patch details on software vulnerabilities with governments around the world under a new program aimed at securing critical infrastructure and government assets from hacker attacks. The program, codenamed Omega, features a 'Defensive Information Sharing Program' that will offer government entities at the national level technical information on vulnerabilities that are being updated in their products." There's a stream the bad guys would dearly love to tap into.

6 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. ah its for security by pilgrim23 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    and everyone KNOWS how well governments can keep secrets.

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    - Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
  2. WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Because governments would never help a company in their nation with industial espionage.....

  3. Re:ah its for security by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's certainly not about security. It's purely a PR scheme. MS wants to make government agencies feel important and special if they use their products. Nothing impresses government officials more than press releases that make every bullshit bing player happy.

  4. Linux does this for everyone. by linzeal · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Doesn't Linux already do this, for everyone? The only people who are going to be fooled by this in the government are elitist pricks.

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    An Education is the Font of All Liberty
  5. take a page out of by nimbius · · Score: 3, Insightful

    the book of FLOSS guys. all your customers need to promptly know when you find flaws, not just the governments with the ability to restrict your sales and service. Im talking about banks, schools, hospitals, and power plants.

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    Good people go to bed earlier.
  6. License to hack! by molo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is insanity! So the government of US, UK, Israel, China, etc. will get information on vulnerabilities before the general public? The obvious outcome isn't a more secure government server, it is that the intelligence agencies will get a headstart on exploiting public and private systems the world over. It is a license to hack, for either industrial espionage or government espionage purposes.

    What is a system administrator to do? There is no way to prepare for this kind of thing, the attack vectors will be unknowable by the general public. My only thought is to switch as many systems away from Microsoft as fast as possible. This is a total security nightmare.

    -molo

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    Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.