RE: Pentester convicted..

[Kluge <kluge () blackroses com>]

Bret McDaniel didn't scan a single machine.  He'd discovered a security 
hole in the company's (Tornado, IIRC) software and wrote a two line patch 
while working FOR that company.  He'd brought the problem 
and the patch to the attention of the company, and they refused to apply 
the patch or even let their customers know that they were all vulnerable.

He sent emails to the company's customers (not just some random 3rd party 
or news media source) telling them about the security issue, and _how to 
fix it_.  I'd imagine a few of them were just a little pissed off that the 
company had known about everything for over a year and had kept quiet.

Now when he sent these emails, he was no longer employed by the company, 
AND he'd sent them through the company's mail server (~14k emails.) 
Because the server was poorly configured/administered, the thousands of 
messages ramped the load avg through the roof and hosed the box.

-k

On Thu, 11 May 2006, Craig Wright wrote:

> First - Get a clue.
<snip>
> Bret McDanel The other mentioned 1030 case also broke the law - Plain
> and simple. You have no right to scan sites for the hell of it. This is
> illegal, unprofessional and plain stupid!
>
> Regards,
> Craig
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: William Hancock [mailto:bill.hancock () isthmusgroup com]
> Sent: Thursday, 11 May 2006 12:20 AM
> To: pen-test () securityfocus com
> Subject: Pentester convicted..
>
> Hey there pen-testers, take this with a grain of salt, it just got me
> excited.  I am really interested in everyones opinion on the matter or
> corporate responsibility and ownership.
>
> <RANT>
> In an article posted to slashdot today
> (http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/10/112259&from=rss) a man
> has been convicted of hacking when he casually and helpfully reported a
> security vulnerability to the owners of a web site, in this case The
> University of Southern California.  It reads like it was some sort of
> simple SQL injection and upon gleaning the information he reported it.
>
> What are we to do as a community I ask?  We should we, the good guys,
> who are paid for our knowledge and ability to exploit mistakes,
> oversights, and weaknesses then professionally report them to aid in the
> securing of information capital (or anyone who reports the flaw for that
> matter) worry about prosecution.  It lends itself to a forcing the
> technical community to sit on their laurels and wait for the people who
> don't report issues to exploit them.  Further it sounds very clear that
> had he not notified them, they would have never known.
>
> A security pro notices a flaw, checks to make sure he is not on crack by
> 'flipping a bit', deems the threat viable and is likely to be exploited,
> notifies the owners, then get arrested and charged with unauthorized
> access.  We, as a or even The security community, should push
> corporations, governments, and organized body's to take responsibility
> and ownership of their problems.  If they publish a site that is flawed
> or exposing information then they are authorizing the retrieval of that
> information.  I'm not advocating that they laws should allow any jerk to
> try and brute his or her way in to a public or private web site, but
> come on.
>
> If someone leaves their wallet in the park with no guard or protection,
> I pick it up and bring it back to the owner, the owner didn't want me to
> have it but I brought it back to him.  Why in the hell should I have to
> go to jail for returning it to him, why should I/we be punished for
> doing the right thing?
>
> I acknowledge this to be a rant but there must but some way to insist
> that when people make something available to the public that it is their
> responsibility to safeguard it and appreciate not persecute someone who
> let's them know (for free I might add) that a weakness exists.  This is
> simple scapegoating, the University did something not advisable as a
> good practice and instead of owning up to it they villafied a
> professional pen-tester for offering valid advice.
>
> </RANT>
>
>
> Thanks,
> Bill
>
>
>
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