Penetration Testing mailing list archives
Re: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure
From: "David Litchfield" <david () ngssoftware com>
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 19:25:16 +0100
The statement could have been written more clearly. Comma's help to delineate dependencies in a statement. Here's what I got out of it: - NGSSoftware does vulnerability research. - Vendors have been slow to patch vulnerabilities. - To make patch process more prompt, vendors will be given 1 week heads up when vulnerabilities are discovered. - After 1 week, the public will be alerted by NGSS. - NGSS will provide a workaround to the public, unless that workaround will provide exploitation details. - NGSS will add a check for the vulnerability to vuln assessment software, regardless of whether the check would disclose exploitation details. - This process is consistent with ietf Christey-Wysopal draft. - This process will make the patch process more visible by providing a way for the public to see how long it took to write the patch.
A fairly good summation, however....
This process will keep some exploitation details away from the public, and particularly, a minority of malicious members of the public. Though obvious, it is worth noting that this process will only keep exploitation details of vulnerabilities disovered by NGSS from the public, and the underground will continue to write exploits for private
distribution
until they are old enough to be hired as consultants.
This comment (and some which follow) indicate you've missed on of the key points. When the vendor does release a patch NGSSoftware will follow up with full details as normal. The VNA is not intended to replace our normally full advisory - it simply exists as an interim solution to 'help' ensure vendors release patches in a timely fsahion.
Alfreds comments about how this will affect the pen-testing profession
seem
to be based on the possibility that, advisories published by NGSS will
cause
customers to want to be sure their pen-testers are checking for these vulnerabilities. Without detailed information about these vulnerabilities, pen-testers may not be able to check for them, which could lead to
incomplete
assessments, and potentially, an further erosion of the credibility of the profession.
Again this is counteracted by the follow up advisory - see above. The pentest community will still get the full information so they can provide their customers with details of these vulnerabilities. It is not and never has been the intent of NGSSoftware or the guys that make up the company to 'horde' our research and keep it to ourselves.
NGSS's process is a way to make vulnerability R&D finally pay for itself, because they know that being simply being elite doesn't mean much to the managers and CFO's making purchasing decisions. The only value add that there is in a competetive market like security software/services is proprietary technology, and a means to protect that advantage. Spending their expensive R&D resources to get props on bugtraq or at blackhat won't keep them fed, despite the community value of doing so.
By putting these checks in Typhon, which we've always done, we buy a week or two advantage over something like Nessus. Hope this clears things up. Thanks, David Litchfield http://www.ngssoftware.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This list is provided by the SecurityFocus Security Intelligence Alert (SIA) Service. For more information on SecurityFocus' SIA service which automatically alerts you to the latest security vulnerabilities please see: https://alerts.securityfocus.com/
Current thread:
- Re: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure, (continued)
- Re: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure Drew (May 28)
- RE: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure Marc Maiffret (May 28)
- RE: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure Deus, Attonbitus (May 28)
- RE: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure Marc Maiffret (May 28)
- RE: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure Ryan Russell (May 29)
- Message not available
- RE: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure Deus, Attonbitus (May 29)
- RE: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure Marc Maiffret (May 28)
- Re: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure Drew (May 28)
- Re: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure Brad Mills (May 29)
- Re: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure David Litchfield (May 29)
- Re: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure batz (May 29)
- Re: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure Jon Bull (May 30)
- Re: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure David Litchfield (May 30)
- Re: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure hellNbak (May 30)
- Re: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure J Jacoby (May 31)
- Re: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure Patrik Birgersson (May 29)