Re: Informing Companies about security vulnerabilities...

From: Wolf Halton (saphil@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Oct 04 2006 - 21:14:02 EDT


sla.ckers.com has lists of sites that might have various
vulnerabilities. On a similar note, does knowing that most kwickset
door locks can be picked by a professional in about 20 seconds make you
have to pick all of them that you see? That is almost as fast as the
owner of the key can turn the lock, but knowing it (even knowing how to
do it) doesn't make you a criminal. I think we need a much stronger
professional association to legitimize our use of our minds and
skill-sets. I hate the idea of state-sanctioned anything, but state
licensing based upon passing some set of certificates might be very
useful to avoid these knee-jerk witch-hunting parties.

--- Andreas Putzo <putzoa@gmx.de> wrote:

> On Oct 04, Joseph McCray wrote:
> > Usually when we do this we only find a few simple things (XXS for
> > example) - no big deal right. With this particular website we just
> kept
> > finding another, after another and on and on. Over 600 instances of
> XXS,
> > over 200 SQL Injection - this was bad. After a while it started to
> get
> > boring there was so many....
> >
> > So I drafted a letter to the editor as well as several other
> prominent
> > people at the newspaper. It detailed my finding and recommended
> some
> > possible mitigation strategies. After emailing this I didn't hear
> > anything for a few days, so I emailed it again and followed up with
> a
> > phone call. After getting no response to the second email and then
> > having been bounced around from department to department when I
> called I
> > just said forget it.
>
> You can try to set them an ultimatum pretending to disclose the holes
> to the public. Perhaps they are more willing to react if they are
> forced to do so.
> Depending on the information you can get through the website
> (customer data anywhere?) and the laws in your country (IANAL, btw.)
> you may go to the intrigued publicity, indeed. They gotta have to do
> something if someone defaced their website actually.
>
>
> --
> regards,
> Andreas Putzo
>

--
Summer Special - Make Money on Your Phone Bill  Arrowstars.com 
Computer support network: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Tech_Answers/?yguid=11909323
Eggs from Happy Chickens!  Catwood Farms - 1960 Hightower Trail, Conyers GA 30012-1822 - 678-384-4930
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This List Sponsored by: Cenzic
Need to secure your web apps?
Cenzic Hailstorm finds vulnerabilities fast.
Click the link to buy it, try it or download Hailstorm for FREE.
http://www.cenzic.com/products_services/download_hailstorm.php?camp=701600000008bOW
------------------------------------------------------------------------


This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Sat Apr 12 2008 - 10:57:05 EDT