So, the stories are out of the analysis of the code for Mozilla Firefox. It seems there were a large number of potential flaws found (71 potential security vulnerabilities) according to the article. This was done using an automated tool and many say, that in order to evaluate the true severity of the flaws, you have to be familiar with the code. Some, I’m sure will pounce on this with the “I thought open source software was supposed to be more secure…. I’m going back…” but it’s time to stop and think about things a moment. Open Source software…. anyone can access the source, anyone can analyze it for problems, anyone can run an automated tool to test it…..
Tag: EVERYONE
-
System patching 0-days and ancient-day vulnerabilities
There’s a good article at Michael Sutton’s Blog which points out something that really makes sense and I think many people are aware of, but with all the buzz that a new previously undisclosed vulnerability has, we forget. The point is this, there are plenty of machines online vulnerable to ancient flaws that have been known (in some cases for years.) In his article, he does a search for one specific vulnerability and finds targets. Some of the comments speculate that some may be honeypots, but I would doubt that a high percentage are and suspect that most are the real deal.
-
Nugache the latest in bot-net technology… and why you should care about botnets…
To show you where the threat with bot networks is going there’s a story today on Nugache (Symantec summary) which is a bot that takes advantage of a number of clever tricks to avoid having the whole bot net shut down, allow command and control on an encrypted channel and essentially have no “human readable strings” in any of it’s communications. The encryption of it’s connections makes it harder for IDS to catch it (as they rely on signatures of traffic.
-
Federal requirement to disclose database security breaches?
Fines and prison time are among the penalties envisioned under a proposed house bill. The requirement would be that businesses with database holding information on more than 10,000 people (or federal employees) would have to inform either the Secret Service or the FBI of a data security breach. (The maximum sentence would be five years.) Now, on my first read of this, I thought, well sure – any company should disclose the possible loss, theft, or breach of a database holding customer data. I still think that… but I don’t know that the focus of penalty is on the right shoulders.
-
Microsoft’s speed to get security patches out
Brian Krebs at the Security Fix has done an interesting study related to how long it takes Microsoft to release a security fix for a problem, starting from the time they are notified of the security vulnerability. For the most part, 134.5 days has been the window between notification and vulnerability patching for the last 2 years from Microsoft. (That is for vulnerabilities that were submitted to Microsoft through the normal process…)
-
Viral turf war
I remember very well the competing worms that came out in early 2004, Netsky and Bagel (Beagle) and to a degree Mydoom as well. One would try to uninstall the other as they fought for control of a pc. They were done by competing gangs and were literally waging a turf war with home (and business computers.) The same seems to be happening with the latest round of plug ‘n play (worms) viruses (bots).
-
The connection between Spam and Viruses
After comparing MANY of these delivery failures (a fraction of what has gone out with my domain name forged I’m afraid…) They are all advertising essentially the same site (sometimes different gateways to it, but I’ve traced it all back to a close group of domains that have been unresponsive to abuse reports online…. (more…)