Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re: When is it valid to claim that a vulnerability leads to a remote attack?
From: "Thor (Hammer of God)" <thor () hammerofgod com>
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2009 21:42:07 -0700
I think the classification system as a whole is ultimately based on agenda. Vendors (I presume) don't want things to sound as bad as they may be. Researchers want things to sound as bad as they CAN be. And the rest of the people would like a means by which to measure "urgency" to patch as it relates to cost/benefit, risk/threat, and potential consequences of inaction. So I think it ultimately comes down to a sliding scale of what the person responsible for incident response is comfortable with. To me, I draw the line of a "remote" exploit to "no user or system interaction required" as I've previously stated. You have to make SOME sort of qualification, or else calculated responses become unmanageable. Analysis beyond that (to me) enters you into a model of diminishing returns. By way of example: If you can send an email exploit to an Outlook client that can execute by a preview only, is that remote? I would say no, as a user would have to preview it. If one could exploit the same vulnerability just by it arriving into one's Outlook inbox without preview would it THEN be remote? Again, I would say no, as Outlook would have to be running. And, of course, one would have to be running Outlook in the first place. As a group, I don't think we need to define what "remote" is. That's up to the response team. What you need to do is decide on what you do when YOU classify something as remote, and then take action according to a predefined plan. That is really the advice I have for the OP. Don't look to what other people consider remote; decide for yourself, and plan a course of action accordingly. t
-----Original Message----- From: Paul Schmehl [mailto:pschmehl_lists () tx rr com] Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 6:25 PM To: James Matthews; Thor (Hammer of God) Cc: full-disclosure () lists grok org uk; Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu; Jonathan Leffler Subject: Re: [Full-disclosure] When is it valid to claim that a vulnerability leads to a remote attack? --On October 11, 2009 7:18:33 PM -0500 James Matthews <nytrokiss () gmail com> wrote:If you classify a remote bug (anything that can be exploitedremotely)then you are classifying all bugs (you can use a privilege escalation exploit remotely) I agree with Thor, anything that exploits a remote service (HTTP,FTP Etc..) without any user interaction.My understanding of the classical meaning of "remote exploit" is that the machine can be exploited without the attacker needing to have an account on the box. A local exploit is one that requires that the attacker first obtain access to the box. For example, you can exploit ls on a Linux box to elevate your privileges, if you can first get on the box through ssh or some other method. I have never seen remote exploit definitions require the limitation of no user action. When discussing taxonomy and the usefulness of vulnerability definitions in real world scenarios, it's much more useful to know that something can be exploited without the attacker having access to the box. Certainly a higher priority is placed on resolving those issues than ones where the attacker first has to obtain access. Paul Schmehl, If it isn't already obvious, my opinions are my own and not those of my employer. ****************************************** WARNING: Check the headers before replying
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Current thread:
- When is it valid to claim that a vulnerability leads to a remote attack? Jonathan Leffler (Oct 08)
- Re: When is it valid to claim that a vulnerability leads to a remote attack? Thierry Zoller (Oct 09)
- Re: When is it valid to claim that a vulnerability leads to a remote attack? Valdis . Kletnieks (Oct 09)
- Message not available
- Re: When is it valid to claim that a vulnerability leads to a remote attack? Thierry Zoller (Oct 10)
- Re: When is it valid to claim that a vulnerability leads to a remote attack? Thor (Hammer of God) (Oct 10)
- Re: When is it valid to claim that a vulnerability leads to a remote attack? James Matthews (Oct 11)
- Re: When is it valid to claim that a vulnerability leads to a remote attack? Jeremy Brown (Oct 11)
- Re: When is it valid to claim that a vulnerability leads to a remote attack? Paul Schmehl (Oct 11)
- Re: When is it valid to claim that a vulnerability leads to a remote attack? Thor (Hammer of God) (Oct 11)
- Re: [-SPAM-] Re: When is it valid to claim that a vulnerability leads to a remote attack? Thierry Zoller (Oct 12)
- Re: When is it valid to claim that a vulnerability leads to a remote attack? Valdis . Kletnieks (Oct 09)
- Re: When is it valid to claim that a vulnerability leads to a remote attack? Thierry Zoller (Oct 09)