Full Disclosure mailing list archives

RE: Re: Oracle Security Contact


From: "Schmehl, Paul L" <pauls () utdallas edu>
Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2002 17:46:08 -0600

Especially since they're required by RFC.

Paul Schmehl (pauls () utdallas edu)
TCS Department Coordinator
The University of Texas at Dallas
AVIEN Founding Member
http://www.utdallas.edu/~pauls/


-----Original Message-----
From: Ron DuFresne [mailto:dufresne () winternet com] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 06, 2002 3:39 PM
To: Steven M. Christey
Cc: full-disclosure () lists netsys com
Subject: [Full-disclosure] Re: Oracle Security Contact



Many ISP's and some corps now list an abuse@ address in their 
domain info. sure would be nice to see vendors also include 
such security@ contact addresses in their domain info, rather 
then make folks hunt and seek such critical information all 
over the web.


Thanks,

Ron DuFresne


On Tue, 5 Nov 2002, Steven M. Christey wrote:


On the full-disclosure list, low halo asked:

Could someone please give me the security contact address 
for Oracle 
Corporation?  It seems as though their marketing department's 
"Unbreakable" slogan makes them think that its OK to bury their 
security advisories & contact info deep within their site 
somewhere.

It's not immediately obvious when navigating from the 
www.oracle.com 
home page, but it's listed at: 
http://otn.oracle.com/deploy/security/alerts.htm

  secalert_us () oracle com

I found this by doing a site search on "vulnerability," 
which led me 
to the advisory page.

Very few vendor home pages (open/closed source, freeware or 
not) seem 
to make it easy to find a security contact, or advisory 
page, from the 
home page.

Here's a quick look I just did from the home pages of 
various software 
providers.  Your Mileage May Vary.


from www.microsoft.com: click on "Security" in the resources menu, 
click on "more bulletins and patches," go to "contact Microsoft 
security"

from www.redhat.com: there's no "security" link on the 
front page. The 
"community resources" menu does not mention a security link.  The 
"support & docs" link asks for user registration, but there's an 
"errata" menu on the left hand side.  This gets us to a "security 
alerts" page but I don't see any security POC's there.  There's a 
"Bugzilla" link on the left hand menu, but this leads to the 
bugzilla.redhat.com web site, which requires registration.  
The online 
security advisories don't seem to list a security contact.  The 
advisories, when posted to Bugtraq, come from 
bugzilla () redhat com and 
not some security-specific email address.  But the advisory 
does list 
a PGP key at http://www.redhat.com/about/contact/pgpkey.html, which 
suggests that a security () redhat com address is available.  
On this PGP 
key page, there's a "Red Hat Security Resource Center" menu 
along with 
a "Security Contacts and Procedures" option.  Then I see 
that this was 
under the "Enterprise Solutions" web page, which could have 
been found 
from the www.redhat.com home page had I clicked on the "Enterprise 
Solutions" link instead of the "Support & Docs" link.

from www.suse.de: click "security announcements" and the security 
contact is near the top of the page

from www.debian.com: click "security information" which 
links to the 
"Debian security FAQ" which has a "How can I reach the 
security team?" 
question which points to security () debian org

from www.sun.com: I have two main nagivation options, 
"solutions" or 
"support & training."  I'll try "solutions" since that would have 
worked for Red Hat.  There's a "security" option under "Consulting 
Services" but that's for, well, their consulting services.  But 
there's a "Related Links" whose first item is "Security" 
which gets us 
to the main security page, and its first link is for the security 
bulletins, which lists security-alert () sun com.

from www.novell.com: I gasp and reluctantly allow the 
ActiveX control 
to run, although IE isn't telling me which control I'm allowing.  I 
try a text search for "secur" [security, secure] which 
seems to find 
something, but it's not highlighted in my browser so I can't tell. 
Emboldened by previous "Solutions" successes, I go there first, but 
this time no luck.  The "support" menu doesn't include a security 
sub-item but I click it anyway and find the Novell security alerts 
page, which includes a form I can use to submit bugs.

from www.mandrake.com: I get redirected to 
www.linux-mandrake.com and 
go to the Security Updates link, which has the 
security () linux-mandrake com address.

from www.openbsd.org: I click on the "Security" link and the 
"Reporting problems" section points to deraadt () openbsd org

from www.cisco.com: a "secur" search has similar issues that I had 
with www.novell.com (i.e. it's somewhere in the page but I 
can't find 
it), though it does show up in a "Networking Solutions & 
Provisioned 
Services" item.  I click on that and get a big Javascript 
menu with a 
security option (maybe that was one of the search 
matches?), so I go 
there, but the page is for various security solutions and not a 
security contact.  I use a drop-down menu to go to tech support, 
search for "secur" and get the SNMP advisory.  I notice a "Contact 
PSIRT" reference but for the sake of experimentation I'll pretend I 
don't know what PSIRT means, I'm looking for "security" 
people.  So I 
go to the SNMP security advisory, which has a "Cisco Security 
Procedures" section, which then gets me to the PSIRT page and the 
security-alert () cisco com / psirt () cisco com addresses.

from www.freebsd.org: click on "Security" and the first 
section brings 
us to security-officer () FreeBSD org.

from www.hp.com: no matches on "secur".  I try "support and 
drivers" 
and then "HP technical support."  There's a "security" option under 
software, which brings me to a page that tells me how I can 
"receive 
security bulletins by email," which isn't quite what I'm 
looking for 
but close enough.  This tells me I have to go to the "HP IT 
Resource 
Center" web site, register, then log in... but I'm not 
really in the 
mood to register right now, I've already got enough web accounts to 
manage.  I just happen to notice a small "security" link on 
the top of 
the page that hasn't been visited before, so I go there 
(http://www.hp.com/security/index.html).  There are some drop-down 
menus including particular product categories, so I'll just pick 
"hp-ux" software.  This lists various security products but no 
security contacts or promising links.  I try "all hp 
internet security 
products and technologies" but that gets me back to a page I've 
already seen.  I try the "contact hp" link, which gets me to 
http://thenew.hp.com/country/us/eng/contact_us.html.  The main page 
doesn't immediately grab me, but the left hand menu says "report a 
software security issue" and I click on it.  This points me to 
security-alert () hp com.

from www.mozilla.org: see 
http://archives.neohapsis.com/archives/ntbugtraq/2002-q2/0095.html

In short, the ease with which security contacts can be found varies 
from site to site, and individual to individual.  There are many 
different "reasonable" paths that somebody might take in finding a 
security contact.

Software providers who wish to simplify vulnerability 
notification can 
address some of this with prominent links from all of these pages:

 - security pages (both the "solutions" and advisory pages)

 - the advisories themselves

 - tech support

 - the "contact us" page.


- Steve


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in 
humanity.  It eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets 
us get straight to the business of hate, debauchery, and 
self-annihilation." -- Johnny Hart
      ***testing, only testing, and damn good at it too!***

OK, so you're a Ph.D.  Just don't touch anything.

_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html

_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html


Current thread: