Penetration Testing mailing list archives
RE: Vulnebrability level definition
From: "Rob Shein" <shoten () starpower net>
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 13:33:10 -0500
I disagree. The question isn't the severity of the compromise, but rather the severity of the vulnerability. Many factors come into this, such as the ease of exploitation and frequency of attempted exploitation. A good example of a severe bug would be the unicode exploit on IIS; no firewall can mitigate it (without voiding the point of the web server), anyone with a browser can exploit it (no need to know offsets or write shellcode, it's the ultimate script kiddie wet dream), it leads to root compromise very quickly and everyone and their "kr3w" is looking for servers that are vulnerable to it. Other examples of severe vulnerabilities might include those exploited by worms. A lesser vulnerability would be the ability to establish NULL sessions...if you have to worry about this in an attack from the outside, you have bigger problems than tuning your IDS. Finally, some vulnerabilities only incur a risk of DoS, which is usually less severe than someone busting root on your network. In risk management, we think in terms of likelihood of occurrence and impact of event. Certain vulnerabilities are more likely to be exploited than others, and some are worse than others, so these factors need to be considered before someone can even begin to try to manage the risks.
-----Original Message----- From: Damir Rajnovic [mailto:gaus () cisco com] Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2003 5:42 AM To: pen-test () securityfocus com; security-basics () securityfocus com Subject: Re: Vulnebrability level definition At 22:57 11/02/2003 +0100, Per Niila Albinsson wrote:There would also be a need for probablity which I do guess is very subjectivem but do depends of the customers enviroment. The probabilityfor someoneexploiting a vulnerabliity would be large on a publicaccessible server,medium for a server on the internal network, and low on anetwork with nousers.Amen to this. My personal belief is that one can not say what is the severity of a bug. It all depends on how the equipment is used. It may not be much about if it is a large network or not but if that feature is used. Another question is "What is worth of your data?". If some bug will expose something that is public anyway then it boils down a nuisance. If it will expose your confidential data then it is very serious indeed. The vendor can not know how a particular feature will be used in a customer's environment. Yes, a vendor may have some idea but, is it valid in all cases? Gaus ============== Damir Rajnovic <psirt () cisco com>, PSIRT Incident Manager, Cisco Systems <http://www.cisco.com/go/psirt> Telephone: +44 7715 546 033 200 Longwater Avenue, Green Park, Reading, Berkshire RG2 6GB, GB ============== There are no insolvable problems. The question is can you accept the solution? -------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- 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:
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Current thread:
- Vulnebrability level definition Andres Martinez (Feb 11)
- RE: Vulnebrability level definition Greg Reber (Feb 11)
- Re: Vulnebrability level definition R. DuFresne (Feb 11)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- Re: Vulnebrability level definition Per Niila Albinsson (Feb 11)
- Re: Vulnebrability level definition Damir Rajnovic (Feb 12)
- RE: Vulnebrability level definition Rob Shein (Feb 12)
- RE: Vulnebrability level definition Damir Rajnovic (Feb 13)
- RE: Vulnebrability level definition Rob Shein (Feb 14)
- Re: Vulnebrability level definition Damir Rajnovic (Feb 12)
- Re: Vulnebrability level definition raymond (Feb 14)