RE: Releasing patches is bad for security

["James P. Saveker" <james () wetgoat net>]

My word, you are brave Tim.  I said something similar on Full Disclosure and
got quite a telling off.

I have to fully support your comments and also make another point.

The new patch model for longhorn will not require reboots.  They are
investing a great deal of money in security now as before they had valued
functionality over security.

Current patches are getting smaller as with large enterprises bandwidth can
be at a premium.

For large business they offer SMS as a great tool for patch deployment,
including being aware of remote users and making use of the "bits"
technology.  For smaller business they offer SUS for FREE!!

I am not saying that MS have always got it right in the past, quite frankly
they have not.  Things are changing with MS, time will tell.

James Saveker
www.wetgoat.net 

"The only thing which helps me maintain my slender grip on reality is the
friendship I share with my collection of singing potatoes..."

-----Original Message-----
From: Dozal, Tim [mailto:tdozal () cisco com] 
Sent: 03 March 2004 01:19
To: Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu
Cc: incidents () securityfocus com
Subject: RE: Releasing patches is bad for security 

After sitting in on some of the discussion at the security conferences on
the MS campus their strategy is as sound as any I have scene proposed.  They
are only releasing out of cycle patches for things that are wormable.  Other
vulnerabilities as they are discovered, no matter the source of the
discovery, are released in scheduled patches.

This is to aid their large customers, the ones who usually take the longest
time to deploy patches, have strict IT policy and also pay a TON of $$$ to
MS for their software.

You miss MS intent with:

I mean.. *really*.. apply a few neurons.  What black hat who didn't just
fall out of a tree is going to reveal his 0-day in a worm before it's
usefulness has dried up?

Those are things they patch in cycle as they are discovered, and trends show
the largest impacting virus threats from these occur AFTER the patches.  The
smart hackers who have early 0-day exploits will always exist, they are the
needle in the haystack not the atomic bomb MS is trying to deal with in
their recent patch changes and policy changes.

2003 and longhorn will be quite a different story, MS has learned turning
everything on for ease of use is not smart or secure so the next gen stuff
is more secure in the idea that if it's not turned on specifically by the
customer it's not turned on at all.  This will make for a huge reduction in
the attack surface of the hosts, again a step in a long line of steps that
are needed to make the entire solution secure.

Tim

-----Original Message-----
From: Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu [mailto:Valdis.Kletnieks () vt edu]
Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 8:51 AM
To: Dozal, Tim
Cc: incidents () securityfocus com
Subject: Re: Releasing patches is bad for security 

On Mon, 01 Mar 2004 14:40:40 PST, "Dozal, Tim" <tdozal () cisco com>  said:
> The question to ask yourself is do the vulnerabilities get exploited 
> before or after MS releases the patches.  I think for code red/Nimda 
> MS posted a patch and some 300ish days later the worm hit.  Then move 
> ahead

Note that there's a major logic flaw in here - "vulnerabilities exploited"
is *NOT* the same thing as "worm".  Microsoft *wants* you to make that
logical error, because they don't want you thinking about all the unpatched
holes in IE, and they don't want you thinking about how many black hats have
0-days that they're not attaching to worms because then they'd lose the use
of that 0-day.

I mean.. *really*.. apply a few neurons.  What black hat who didn't just
fall out of a tree is going to reveal his 0-day in a worm before it's
usefulness has dried up?

If anything, the fact that Nimda was 300 days and Blaster was only 18, is
proof that:

a) The percentage of people patching quickly is going up, *and*
b) this means that throwing away your 0-day on "diminishing returns" is
happening faster.

Obviously, whoever released Nimda was using their 0-day for months after the
patch before enough p[eople closed the hole that they said "screw this, this
one's gotten lame" and launched a worm.  It only took 2 weeks of
concentrated patching before the owner of the Blaster 0-day threw in the
towel....

Remember why we originally *started* the full-disclosure movement - without
it, the vendors won't move and the 0-days will circulate for *years*.


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