Re: Telnetd exploit for solaris

["Gnuthad" <securityfocus () aussie mine nu>]

On 6 Sep 2001, at 21:01, fintler wrote:

> If he's researching on how exploits are developed why doesn't he/she
> take a look at the thousands of exploits already out there? What's so
> special about this one?

Why is it up to you to determine what is special about any particular 
exploit? I don't care too much about CodeRed because I don't run IIS 
as my web server, however, I'm still interested in it because of how 
it worked. Is it therefore wrong of me to search for the code for 
CodeRed and determine exactly how it worked? After all, how it worked 
*might* be able to be adapted to other platforms/servers. How do I 
know unless I get a copy to check first?

> You say admins use exploits to test their own hardware, but you also
> mention that after a patch is applied, it may only prevent that
> particular version of the exploit to work, while others that are
> circulated less,  still do. Don't you think that this may provide a
> false sense of security in that the admin may now think that the system
> is no longer vulnerable because that particular exploit the admin found
> on bugtraq no longer works? Wouldn't a detailed explanation of the
> problem that gets into the specific details (aka advisary) be more
> useful and cause less problems compared to something that can be
> compiled straight off the list?

Se above, one exploit may provide indiactions of other exploits that 
other people have not yet seen. I was always under the assumption 
that this was the way Open Source worked, give everyone access to the 
source so you have hundreds/thousands of independant minds looking 
over the code and optimising/debugging/improving it where only a 
handful would otherwise be able to do this.

> I don't really see what you mean by community, a community is just a
> group or ppl who share a common interest. From my point of view all I
> see is a *very* small percentage who share an interest in pitching in,
> and a very large group that takes that work and uses it for some type of
> personal gain. For example, out of the many people who subscribe to
> bugtraq, how many have ever thrown their 2 cents in, I'm almost positive
> it is a small percent.

I'm sorry, I didn't realise that subscription to any of the 
securityfocus mailing lists was dependant on "throwing my 2 cents 
in". I'll be sure to unsubscribe immediately.  While I might not be 
able to assist by writing code/finding exploits, I'm sure it would be 
very obvious to all and sundry that, just by lurking here and reading 
all about CodeRed, had I been vulnerable to the exploit and patched 
my system, I would have helped hundreds or thousands of people around 
the world by not being yet another exploited server that was sending 
useless crap onto the internet from CodeRed.

Gnuthad


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