Exploit Sales: the New Disclosure Debate 31
msm1267 writes "There are a lot of echoes of the disclosure debate in the current discussions about vulnerability exploit sales. The commercial exploit market has developed relatively quickly, at least the public portion of it. Researchers have been selling vulnerabilities to a variety of buyers – government agencies, contractors, other researchers and third-party brokers – for years. But it was done mostly under cover of darkness. Now, although the transactions themselves are still private, the fact that they're happening, and who's buying (and in some cases, selling) is out in the open. As with the disclosure debate, there are intelligent people lining up on both sides of the aisle and the discussion is generating an unprecedented level of malice."
WTF (Score:5, Funny)
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One difference this time around is that there are large piles of currency involved, not to mention the privacy, security–and in some cases, physical security–of people in countries around the world. Governments are buying exploits and using them for a variety of purposes. Some are using them to spy on their own citizens, while others are using them to attack their enemies’ networks. And government contractors and other private buyers are purchasing them for their own uses, as well.
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WTF is this article even about?
It's about horse burial rituals. Duh. Read TFA.
exploit sale = nondisclosure (Score:5, Insightful)
The only interesting exploit is one that hasn't been patched, right? So anyone who discovers, sells, or buys an exploit knows of a vulnerability and is choosing not to disclose it.
By not disclosing a vulnerability, you are allowing others to be vulnerable. It's hard to argue that this is ethical behavior...
Here's an analogy: what if, for every nuke the U.S. destroyed, a nuke disappeared from every other nuclear arsenal in the world? That's what it's like.. by keeping a vulnerability secret, it can be used against anyone using the software. By disclosing the vuln, everyone can patch, disable, or protect the vulnerable software.
Re:exploit sale = nondisclosure (Score:5, Interesting)
Being paid for finding a vulnerability and keeping it secret sure beats getting sued for disclosing it responsibly.
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It is kind of a win win. Either people who stand to lose from vulnerabilities buy or people who stand to gain from vulnerabilities will. If the practise is made illegal it will simply drive disclosers underground, which will greatly weaken all sorts of organisations as the proportion of hostile buyers increases immeasurably.
Re:exploit sale = nondisclosure (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hard to argue that this is ethical behavior...
Sounds like the free market to me, buyers and sellers auctioning off products in a competitive environment. Perhaps corporations with their billions of quarterly profits can reinvest that money into buying exploits so they can fix them.
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So long as people *CAN* patch / disable / protect the vulnerable software.
With the rise of things like locked / encrypted bootloaders, appstores, and lack of updates without a new hardware purchace, I'd say that idea will soon be (if not already) restricted to a very small class of citizens.
(I.e only those who would care about such things. The majority will just roll over and take it, as usual.)
That and if the summary is to be beleved, I would also imagine that the governments of the world will want to outl
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Am not sure I agree with your 2nd 'graph, bouldin.
By not disclosing X, you gain a competitive advantage Y.
I don't see how that is definitely unethical. For example, must antivirus vendors disclose the signatures used to identify infection? Seems unethical by your sentence. If a brick-n-mortar finds methodologies to reduce loss, must they share the idea? Ditto automotive improvements? Hell, for that matter, if I come up with a whiz-bang idea for improving a car, can I sell it selectively to manufacturer
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By not disclosing X, you gain a competitive advantage Y.
So you can screw {h where h in World}. Like the poster said, that is quite unethical. I never understand how people can confuse "free market" with "free people", as they are usually opposites.
Re:exploit sale = nondisclosure (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the counter argument. Let's say you accidentally discover a vulnerability in a bank's web site by mistyping a URL and you ended up at a different customer's account. You write up your finding, and you privately send it to the bank's security team and ask them for nothing in return other than that they act quickly to protect your account. And let's say they turn around and accuse you of hacking them under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and they provide your own written report to the Secret Service as evidence against you? Who is the ethical party?
How would money alter the ethics? If you gave them the details of the flaw and asked the bank for a $1,000 reward, would that change things? What if you offered to tell the bank of the flaw in exchange for $1,000? If they don't pay, are you ethically bound to not sell the vulnerability to a third party?
What if you don't know of any specific flaw in your bank's site, but you would like to make some side money as a pen tester; so you send them a letter asking if they have a "pay for vulnerability policy", and they respond by placing a hold on your account and calling in the Secret Service? Who is acting ethically in that scenario?
What if you fear retribution so you ask this question anonymously? Are you more or less suspicious to the bank? Should they be more or less likely to seek your prosecution?
What if you exploit the vulnerability personally to view Paris Hilton's bank balance, but you don't do anything malicious to her account? What if you disclose that balance information to the tabloids? What about viewing the bank data of a non-celebrity?
And if not the bank, which third party might you sell it to? A security researcher? A competing bank? Microsoft? A hacker? Some random alias on darkode?
Different people are likely to view these behaviors differently, including banks, law enforcement, hackers, computer security professionals, lawmakers, bank customers, and the general public. Different legal cases with different judges are likely to interpret these differently, as well.
There are few clear cut lines standing out among these questions that say "here are the exact boundaries of ethical behavior."
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That was the point. There are hundreds of questions on various sides, and no one answer fits them all.
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Let's say you accidentally discover a vulnerability in a bank's web site by mistyping a URL and you ended up at a different customer's account. You write up your finding, and you privately send it to the bank's security team and ask them for nothing in return other than that they act quickly to protect your account. And let's say they turn around and accuse you of hacking them under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and they provide your own written report to the Secret Service as evidence against you? Who is the ethical party? How would money alter the ethics? If you gave them the details of the flaw and asked the bank for a $1,000 reward, would that change things? What if you offered to tell the bank of the flaw in exchange for $1,000? If they don't pay, are you ethically bound to not sell the vulnerability to a third party? What if you don't know of any specific flaw in your bank's site, but you would like to make some side money as a pen tester; so you send them a letter asking if they have a "pay for vulnerability policy", and they respond by placing a hold on your account and calling in the Secret Service? Who is acting ethically in that scenario? What if you fear retribution so you ask this question anonymously? Are you more or less suspicious to the bank? Should they be more or less likely to seek your prosecution? What if you exploit the vulnerability personally to view Paris Hilton's bank balance, but you don't do anything malicious to her account? What if you disclose that balance information to the tabloids? What about viewing the bank data of a non-celebrity? And if not the bank, which third party might you sell it to? A security researcher? A competing bank? Microsoft? A hacker? Some random alias on darkode? Different people are likely to view these behaviors differently, including banks, law enforcement, hackers, computer security professionals, lawmakers, bank customers, and the general public. Different legal cases with different judges are likely to interpret these differently, as well.
I'm sorry, I don't see a single one of those as vague ethical quandaries. You seem to be confusing "ethics" with "what a bank/government would do in today's litigious, paranoid, and ignorant society."
To answer your questions in order though:
1) You were acting ethically, the bank was not.
2a) No, you're now simply asking for a tip for services already rendered.
2b) Dramtically by introducing an artificial and selfishly motivated barrier to aiding those in need.
2c) You are ethically bound to not "sell" t
A free-for-all market of "cyber weapons" (Score:3)
About as good as any other weapons market willing to sell to whoever is the highest bidder...
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with FAR less regulation.
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Will I be able to work with foreign coders to fix bugs, or do I need to report them all to the government? Will I be seen as a terrorist for submitting a pull request for a security feature?
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Also, how do you enforce it, w/o nuking everybody's privacy, which so far rightfully so remains the bigger issue. It's not like these entities that are getting hacked are broke and new, they for the most part don't invest properly in mitigation. Remember Sony's play on line getting hacked hard (if i remember correct), and the PR generated from that... Sony hasn't been hacked since in such a high profile attack as far as I know (DDOS doesn't count).
Bugs will get fixed, the easy way or the hard way. (Score:3)
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Oh, there's better ways, they just haven't been implemented yet.
Like a national center for vulnerabilities disclosure, or computer break in laws that actually make sense in the context of their subject.
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National Disclosure Centers are only as good as the organizations that take their disclosures.
I worked pretty closely with the DOC CIRT when it was first formed. It did not matter how many CIOs were involved in the process of forming it, or what they agreed to do, or what channels of communications were established. There were always groups that would not / could not work to address issues when they happened.
I don't think passing more laws has much affect on the issue either. Laws are regulatory and fall ve
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Just out of curiosity how would replacing windows with linux prevent a spear phishing attack?
In the context of laws, I'm actually thinking of laws that would protect security researchers who are publishing these vulnerabilities.
I would also love to hear what you think "secure code" is, what if the vulnerability is in a lower OSI layer as plenty often are?
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Two wrongs don't make a "right." Just because a vendor fails to adequately address a vulnerability does not make it ethical to exploit that vulnerability.
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If I lived in a world that didn't require money, it would be different.
But either way, I do feel bad for the end users.
modern day defense contractor (Score:4, Interesting)
There is nothing different between this and the practice of huge companies selling death machines to the militaries of the world, and the occasional non state para military planing a takeover or something - tanks, bomber jets, missiles and so on - how is this any different? the security researchers work to create a product - i.e. a vulnerability, then sell that information, the product of their effort - to a willing customer.
Its a nasty business, you can question the morals and ethics of it, but it really is no different than companies that sell guns and bombs to whatever crackpot thug has a truck full of cash or gold bars...
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Sales of weapons to nasty governments has at least, in theory, been nominally approved by accountable, elected officials, and is in accordance with some policies set by same.