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[News] The Secrets of Secret Patching of Software

  • Subject: [News] The Secrets of Secret Patching of Software
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:10:29 +0000
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Organization: Netscape / schestowitz.com
  • User-agent: KNode/0.10.4
Web security report says known vulnerabilities fall because criminals pay to
hide them

,----[ Quote ] 
| Some researchers fear software vendors are now buying information on the 
| vulnerabilities so they can fix them without anyone noticing. 
| 
| In other words, Rouland fears, "it is profitable not to (publicly) report a 
| vulnerability." 
`----

http://news.smh.com.au/web-security-report-says-known-vulnerabilities-fall-because-criminals-pay-to-hide-them/20080212-1rrs.html

Microsoft patches a lot of things silently and rarely reports the flaws it
finds.


Examples:

Vista SP1 will contain undocumented fixes

,----[ Quote ]
| Interesting email in today mailbag:  “Will SP1 contain undisclosed or 
| undocumented security fixes?” 
| 
| For some people, counting the number of security flaws that one OS has 
| compared to another is important because it offers a metric upon which to  
| determine which OS is the most secure (personally, I feel that it’s a bogus 
| metric, but I’ll let it slide for now).  However, many claim that Microsoft 
| stacks the deck in its favor by not disclosing a full list of vulnerabilities 
| that have been patched by omitting to include those discovered and patched 
| in-house.      
`----

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=1225


Critical Vulnerability in Microsoft Metrics

,----[ Quote ]
| This is a small subset of all the vulnerabilities, because the 
| vulnerabilities that are found through the QA process and the vulnerabilities 
| that are found by the security folks they engage as contractors to perform 
| penetration testing are fixed in service packs and major updates. For 
| Microsoft this makes sense because these fixes get the benefit of a full test 
| pass which is much more robust for a service pack or major release than it is 
| for a security update.      
`----

http://blog.mozilla.com/security/2007/11/30/critical-vulnerability-in-microsoft-metrics/


http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/3000/PX03096.pdf


Skeletons in Microsoft’s Patch Day closet

,----[ Quote ]
| This is the first time I’ve seen Microsoft prominently admit to silently 
| fixing vulnerabilities in its bulletins — a controversial practice that 
| effectively reduces the number of publicly documented bug fixes (for those 
| keeping count) and affects patch management/deployment decisions.   
`----

http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=316


Beware of undisclosed Microsoft patches

,----[ Quote ]
| Forget for a moment whether Microsoft is throwing off patch counts 
| that Microsoft brass use to compare its security record with those 
| of its competitors. What do you think of Redmond’s silent patching 
| practice?
`----

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=527


Microsoft is Counting Bugs Again

,----[ Quote ]
| Sorry, but Microsoft's self-evaluating security counting isn't really a 
| good accounting.
| 
| [...]
| 
| The point: Don't count on security flaw counting. The real flaw is 
| the counting.
`----

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/security/microsoft_is_counting_bugs_again.html?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535

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