funsec mailing list archives

RE: Microsoft trying to put F.U.D. on Guilfanov 'temporary'patch


From: "Randy Abrams" <abrams () eset com>
Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 16:02:36 -0800

Trusting Ilfak with your beer was, notably, omitted :)

-----Original Message-----
From: funsec-bounces () linuxbox org 
[mailto:funsec-bounces () linuxbox org] On Behalf Of Pierre Vandevenne
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 4:11 PM
To: Fergie
Cc: funsec () linuxbox org
Subject: Re: [funsec] Microsoft trying to put F.U.D. on 
Guilfanov 'temporary'patch

Good Day,

Tuesday, January 3, 2006, 10:15:40 PM, you wrote:

F> Not sure I like how this story is worded. I mean, I 
realize that MS 
F> won't exactly endorse it, but WTF...

The wording is, imho, miles better than Sony's initial 
reaction to the "rootkit" affair. It is very responsible, 
very technically accurate, and not disparaging in any way. 
You couldn't expect MS to endorse anything produced by a 
third party, this is natural. I've always had a lot of "free 
speech" respect for Microsoft, compared to other companies, 
and I've really been positively impressed at their reaction 
to the (bulgarian/romanian?) guy who made a job of finding 
vulnerabilities in Office.

Although I am an early adopter of the patch. I would NOT take 
the responsability to recommend to anyone to deploy it in a 
huge corporate environment without extensive testing by the 
involved parties.

As Ilfak made it clear from the start, this patch evolved 
from his (and my own need) to protect ourselves to what we 
perceived was a real threat. Ilfak apparently posted this on 
his blog, which is usually followed only by a bunch of very 
competent hard core techies, as a technical demonstration of 
how such an issue could be solved. Knowing Ilfak, I am sure 
he did not expect it to be picked up by the mainstream as it 
was. Basically, the idea was - source code provided - to 
demonstrate a potentially useful technique to solve such issues.

Now, to speak of hypothetical scenarios, if I was the "Blue 
Team" and the "Red Team" attacked on a global scale, I'd be 
glad to have that guy on my side ;-)

Gadi asked me in private if Ilfak could be trusted (a natural 
question if their ever was one). My answer was basically that 
I would trust Ilfak with my wallet, my girlfriend and my 
programs. I stand by that assessment.

It should also be noted that, in an indirect way, a lot of 
the people who rely on a anti-virus or a vulnerability fix 
rely on the tool Ilfak masterminds. A lot of the hard core 
techies around know that, but that is a bit complex to 
explain to non techies.

The wording "a Russian computer programmer" is factually true 
(although Ilfak is a Tatar living in Belgium), but the "the 
designer and main programmer of the most widely used malware 
analysis tool" is also factually true.

I guess the one you pick reveals your bias.

--
Best regards,
 Pierre                            mailto:pierre () datarescue com

_______________________________________________
Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts.
https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec
Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.

_______________________________________________
Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts.
https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec
Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.


Current thread: