Re: Microsoft takes 7 years to 'solve' a problem?!

[Paul Schmehl <pschmehl () tx rr com>]

--On Tuesday, November 25, 2008 03:11:01 -0600 Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu wrote:
> That, plus Russ didn't even bother to read the fine article:
>
> "And to be clear, the impact would have been to render many (or nearly all)
> customers' network-based applications then inoperable. For instance, an
> Outlook
> 2000 client wouldn't have been able to communicate with an Exchange 2000
> server.
>
> I know the users Russ supports - we'd have needed a body bag for him if
> he had chosen that route rather than "not cause a significant impact".
>
> This wasn't a buffer overflow, the problem was that the NTLM protocol was
> screwed up by design - and fixing a protocol bug is usually a *lot* more
> painful.  If you read between the lines of the article, it appears that MS
> added support for a fixed protocol back in XP SP2, and has decided that the
> number of pre-SP2 systems out there talking to updated systems has grown small
> enough that it's finally practical to flip the switch.  That's pretty much the
> only way to change a protocol without a flag-day cutover - ship dual-stack
> during a transition, and then flip the switch when few enough old-style
> machines are left.
>
> Let's face it - the number of systems that have gotten compromised via
> SMBRelay attacks is *far* smaller than the number of boxes pwned just
> because they have IE installed and a user at the keyboard. The number of
> systems pwned via SMBRelay is *also* a lot smaller than the number of
> boxes that would have broken if Microsoft had "fixed" things the way Russ
> apparently wanted them to.

Weird.  We were the ones that reported this issue to Microsoft back in 1998 or 
9 (don't recall exactly when now) or at least a part of the issue.  Very 
strange to see it pop up after all these years.  Of course they essentially 
told us the same thing that you describe - can't break everything to fix that 
one thing - wait for the next release.

And you're right - it wasn't a great risk unless you were already in the 
network in a serious way.

-- 
Paul Schmehl
pschmehl () tx rr com

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