darkreading: voting machines

[gem at cigital.com (Gary McGraw)]

Hi all,

I'm sure that many of you saw the "Ed Felten and friends break Diebold
machines" story a couple of weeks ago...maybe in DDJ or on /..  I wrote
a piece about the crack for darkreading, which you can find here:

http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=105188&WT.svl=column1_1

The most interesting thing from an sc-l perspective about this column is
that it emphasizes a client need we're often forced to address---the
need for a demo exploit.  Sometimes those on the receiving end of a
software security vulnerability don't believe that findings are real.
An often-repeated excuse for doing nothing is "well, that's just a
theoretical attack and it's too academic to matter."  I can't tell you
how many times I've heard that refrain.

When that happens, building an exploit is often the only clear next
step.  And yet we all know how expensive and hard exploit development
is.  

In this case, Diebold consistently downplay'ed Avi Rubin's results as
"academic" or "theoretical."  Ed upped the ante.  Think it'll work??

gem

company www.cigital.com
podcast www.cigital.com/silverbullet
book www.swsec.com 


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