full-disclosure - ISS Security Brief: "MS Blast" MSRPC DCOM Worm Propagation (fwd)

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From: dufresne at winternet.com (Ron DuFresne)
Subject: ISS Security Brief: "MS Blast" MSRPC DCOM Worm
 Propagation (fwd)

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003, Evans, Arian wrote:

> Chris,
>
> #That's only good if you're at home and they would also need to be savy
> #enough to know how to configure it properly
>
> 2000 and XP have builtin IP packet filters. XP has a "personal
> firewall".
>
> I'm not sure what being at home (or being elsewhere) has to do with it,
> but the fact remains that the technology is there. The packet filtering
> is rather IP-chains like; it's completely stateless, and configuration
> is
> a manual process requiring basic TCP/IP knowledge.
>

Aye, there's the rub <quoting that famous playwrite>  knowledge/skillbase
and it's relation to internet protocols, let alone those folks that might
have other protocols running.  Most users have no real concept of TCP/IP,
few that even know it's the internet's communication standard know the
difference tween a connectionless protocol and one which is connection
oriented.  Then there's the complexity of windows and it's applications
and the core OS trying to do all this communication between itself and
each application, both on localhost as well as broadcast to the world.
Not many home users have that knowledge, and there are many folks that
work for IS/IT depts that lack it also.  Not everyone that works for an
IS/IT dept is a admin/net-guru/etc, there's alot of book-keeping, customer
relations, etc that requires a skillset dramatically diffeent.  How do
htese users determine what ports to block, which direction<s> to block,
which NIC to do the blocking, etc?  And this does not even venture to deal
with the knowledgebase required to know if a systems been patched, or that
patched system being reversed out of a 'safe-set-up" due to new
applications being added.  Security, firewalling, hell just installing an
OS even an application, is to many, still a blackart, and requires voodoo
chants, waving of dead chickens, and the proper colored clothes while
doing all that...

When one considers how many folks have a blinking timer unset on the new
vcr/dvd player in their livingrooms, it's not surprising that tools that
are there are not understood, let alone used.  It's one of the reasons
that so many vendors ship products with such "unsafe" default configurations.
Ship the devices wideopen and avoid the support costs to clue a user in or
'fix' what was not shipped functional in the product.  Truth be told, some
folks don't what to know 'how it works under the hood' as long as the
points and clicks produce the output they wishfor, life is fine...

sucks, don't it? <smile>

Thanks,

Ron DuFresne
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity.  It
eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the
business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation." -- Johnny Hart
	***testing, only testing, and damn good at it too!***

OK, so you're a Ph.D.  Just don't touch anything.