Re: Scanners and unpublished vulnerabilities - Full Disclosure

From: Pierre Vandevenne (pierre@datarescue.com)
Date: Tue May 28 2002 - 18:02:59 EDT


Hello Alfred,

AH> conversations on-list about full-disclosure. I'm of the opinion it's a
AH> religious discussion with little or no merit for debate given that people

<humour>
Religious ??? Full disclosure is public nudism. Non-disclosure usually
ends up in strip-tease for a happy few.
</humour>

AH> In brief they are now unloading limited details to the public about
AH> vulnerabilities they have notified vendors about.

One week may be, in some cases, to short to expect a reliable fix.
Pushing vendors could lead to fixes that are buggier than what they
fix, or break other things. But yes, this is an understandable middle
ground and they address a real problem.

AH> the Pen-testing community is that these vulnerabilities which are in the
AH> process (presumably) of being fixed are actively being coded into the
AH> Typhon II Vulnerability Assessment Scanner from NGSSoftware. This

Fair enough. They have a competitive advantage. They deserve it. Which
other company would sit on a competitive advantage and not use it ?
If they were telling us they are not using their knowledge, would we
believe them ? Would we trust them ?

-- 
Best regards,
 Pierre                            mailto:pierre@datarescue.com
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