RE: Nimda et.al. versus ISP responsibility

["Mogull,Rich" <rich.mogull () gartner com>]

Yes, the blame lays with the perpetrators. That said those responsible for
the public infrastructure have a responsibility to maintain the functioning
of that infrastructure for their customers (directly, there's also the
"public good"). Infected computers staging attacks on other systems or
abusing network resources should be notified and shut off by the ISP. ISPs
should also imrpove ingress and egress filtering to limit spoofing. ISPs do
their customers a disservice by ignoring abuse on their networks, even if
some clients suffer some down time. It's also probably in the interests of
the ISPs to provide their clients the tols to limit abuse over the network,
I suspect there's a measurable ROI hiding in there someplace.

Rich Mogull
rich.mogull () gartner com

<opinions expressed to this list are personal, and do not necessarily
reflect those of Gartner>

-----Original Message-----
From: UMusBKidN () aol com [mailto:UMusBKidN () aol com]
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 2:41 PM
To: incidents () securityfocus com
Subject: RE: Nimda et.al. versus ISP responsibility


Please be sure you place blame properly.

No ISP is responsible for the actions of a person that releases a malicious
worm on the Internet. No ISP is responsible for the malicious actions of
such worms on their software. The victim of a crime is not the perpetrator
of a crime!

I hate to say it, but not even Microsoft is responsible for creating worms
like Nimda. Yes, Microsoft is responsible for releasing IIS software, but
providing they had no prior knowledge of some bug, you can't blame them for
the crime, when some hacker discovers Yet Another Hole In A Microsoft
Product. Their corporate pants get yanked to their ankles on a regular basis
by hackers the world over, but you still can't blame them for committing the
crime! Blame them for poor quality control perhaps, or say they get shot at
the most because they're on top... but they aren't the criminals here.

Good luck trying to get ISPs to be responsible for content filtering. That's
an impossible task.

Let us not forget who the criminal is and who the victims are in cases such
as Nimda. Certainly, those who provide connectivity or hosting for others
have the responsibility to stay on top of the latest software fixes, but you
can't completely plug that hole either. I know people who got infected by
both CRII and Nimda, who didn't even know they had IIS installed and running
on their boxes. They didn't know their machines were toast until they could
smell it burning.

We can no sooner get rid of malicious worms by placing responsibility for
"handling" them on an ISP, than we can by creating laws that make malicious
software illegal. Until such time that we can successfully track the actual
perpetrators of the crime, or software authors miraculously invent perfect
bug-free programs, not much is going to change. Just make sure you place the
blame where it belongs.

-UMus B. KidN

"Adcock, Matt" wrote:
> <quote>
>   I think we all agree that connecting an unpatched IIS machine to the
> open Internet is acting irresponsibly. Most AUP's already prohibit
> spamming, port scanning etc. (at least on paper). Why not include
> "infection through negligence" as a reason for suspension? Maybe with a
> reasonable grace period the first time.
> </quote>
>
> I agree that the end administrator is ultimately responsible.  The ISPs
> could also help by filtering this traffic.  It would take an
infrastructure
> upgrade that would end up costing the consumer, but I personally would be
> willing to pay a little more.  Maybe give users a choice between being on
a
> filtered network or an open network?

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