full-disclosure - Re: Publishing exploit code

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Date: Wed Jul  6 18:41:37 2005
From: nop at alt.net (Lionel)
Subject: Re: Publishing exploit code - what is it good for

Aviram Jenik wrote:
> What I need is a security administrator, CSO, IT manager or sys admin that can 
> explain why they find public exploits are good for THEIR organizations. Maybe 
> we can start changing public opinion with regards to full disclosure, and 
> hopefully start with this opinion leader.

Speaking with my sysadmin, netadmin & (sometimes) IT manager hats on, 
the reason *I* value full-disclosure security reports is simply because 
of the business politics involved in dealing with security issues at a 
company level. It's much, *much* easier to convince a CEO/CIO to 
allocate urgent resources (in both labour & funding) to deal with a 
*proven*,  security vulnerability, than to a 'theoretical' security issue.
And another business slant on this is that it's better to be one of 
millions of organisations being threatened by a well-documented, 
publically-known exploit that'll probably be patched by the software 
vendor or neutralised by the anti-virus companiess in a few days, than 
to be one of a few dozen organisations targetted by professional 
extortionists with *unreported* vulnerabilities in their toolkit, for 
which you have zero knowledge, & against which you are helpless.