oss-sec mailing list archives
Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser
From: Leif Nixon <nixon () lysator liu se>
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2015 23:01:28 +0200
Brad Knowles <brad () shub-internet org> writes:
There will always be people who get their panties in a major twist because they feel that too much information was released too soon, and there will always be people who get their panties in a major twist because not enough information was released soon enough.
Frankly, over the years I have seen pretty few people on the side of the angels complain that "But *why* didn't you include a weaponized exploit with your advisory? I feel so cheated!".
In this day and age, we have the CRD process. Official representatives from both Qualys and Red Hat have spoken about their perspective on the matter, and they seem to largely be in agreement.
Have we seen anybody from Qualys offer comment? I may have missed that.
However, this list is not the proper place to have that flamewar.
Really? Why? This list is about concepts and practices in open source software security, among other things. Discussing how to do ethically defensible disclosure seems to fit that bill.
If you really feel that strongly about it, I suggest that you find the proper place to have a discussion about what CRD really means and how that should be executed. If you can actually help that process to become better, I’m sure that most of the involved parties will welcome your participation.
Actually, I have something lined up: https://4sics.se/speaker-announcement-leif-nixon-se/ Anyway, the reason that this *really* makes me angry is that I have spent a long time on the defensive side, trying to keep the kids from messing too much with kind-of-important scientific systems. In these situations, where an exploit for a new local root vulnerability turned up without prior warning, we typically started seeing root-level incidents within 24 hours. Have you ever tried to get big organizations, made up of a zillion independent entities, to apply security patches within a timescale of hours? The last time I dealt with one of those incidents, some kid thought it was fun to use this shiny new exploit to wreck a compute cluster used for designing new cancer drugs. Yeah, really. What many people don't seem to realize is how much the availability of ready-to-run exploits increases the risk to innocent bystanders. Show your cleverness all you like; I'll applaud you. Qualys does a lot of good stuff, they deserve to get a little marketing out of their work. But hold off on the fscking exploits until the user base has had a sporting chance to patch, yes? -- Leif Nixon ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "supercomputer specialists are charming, polite [and] witty" -- Wired Magazine ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current thread:
- Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Qualys Security Advisory (Jul 23)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Leif Nixon (Jul 23)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Philip Pettersson (Jul 23)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Jamie Strandboge (Jul 23)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Kurt Seifried (Jul 23)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Leif Nixon (Jul 24)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Martino Dell'Ambrogio (Jul 24)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Joshua Rogers (Jul 24)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Leif Nixon (Jul 24)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Brad Knowles (Jul 24)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Leif Nixon (Jul 25)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Michal Zalewski (Jul 25)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Dave Horsfall (Jul 25)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Brad Knowles (Jul 25)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Hanno Böck (Jul 26)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Philip Pettersson (Jul 23)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Leif Nixon (Jul 23)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Brandon Perry (Jul 24)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser mancha (Jul 27)
- Re: Qualys Security Advisory - CVE-2015-3245 userhelper - CVE-2015-3246 libuser Ankeet Presswala (Jul 27)