From: Pete Herzog (lists@isecom.org)
Date: Thu Mar 30 2006 - 05:10:13 EST
Hi,
> have been able to access them as a piece of cake. Ofcourse the network is
> safe as long as the attacker doesnt "learn" the name of the important
> directories. But i think it is a very "huge" vulnerability. and nessus didnt
> even give a hinch!!
Nessus, like many vulnerability scanners is a blacklist. These scanners
search for "known vulnerabilities". You cannot expect them to know of
all vulnerabilities in a timely fashion. Furthermore, how did you
configure the scanner? Was it set to crawl the website or did you tell
it how the website was structured? Did you tell it to try all exploits
or just try from what it thinks the OS/app is? While Nessus is a really
good scanner, there is also an element of human interaction that is
needed for it to work optimally for you.
>
> and one more quest. How many of you think that the existance of the default
> banners in services(eg apache default error pages) are a security threat, if
> not high, atleast medium?. I do.
First, they wouldn't be the threat, they would be the vulnerability if
you're talking Risk. Second, you do mean existence of correct and exact
banners, don't you? While the less Visibility and information you
provide, the better, there is sometimes a business need or an
established balance between having an Exposure (aka Information Leak)
and the cost of fixing it in a timely manner, most often before a
service is put in a hostile environment. Finally, I can agree with
neither your high, medium, or low mean nothing to other people. My wife
likes her shower really hot. But that's hot to me. She thinks it's
normal (her medium). Risk is relative to the organization not to you.
In the OSSTMM 3.0, banners are often an Exposure if they are true, which
is a level 4 calculation (1st being a vulnerability) and is defined as
simply that which provides information on a Visibility. If banners are
false or misleading on purpose to hide information on the service and
other measures are taken to truly disguise the operational work behind
the service, they are calculated under the Privacy loss control for that
Access point from that vector.
I know, I over-answered. Sorry. Ya'll can wake up now.
Sincerely,
-pete.
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