Was Cigital security warning too hasty?

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-838096.html

By Robert Lemos 
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
February 14, 2002, 3:15 PM PT

Security experts gave mixed reviews Thursday to the way in which a
software-reliability company disclosed a bug in Microsoft's newest
tools for building applications for its .Net framework and Windows
operating system.

Late Wednesday, Dulles, Va.-based Cigital told The Wall Street Journal
of a flaw in Microsoft's latest tools for creating Windows and .Net
programs after giving the software giant a little more than 12 hours
to respond.

Some security experts criticized the quick public announcement as
irresponsible.

"There is no way that Microsoft could fix this in a day," said Al
Huger, vice president of engineering for vulnerability-information
company SecurityFocus. "Full disclosure has to be coupled with
responsible disclosure."

The issue reopens a debate on how to responsibly disclose information
about security vulnerabilities. Thoughts on disclosure range between
two extremes: those who believe that every detail of a potential
security threat should be publicized as soon as possible, and others
who believe that no details of any security flaw should ever be
published.

Mainstream security experts typically believe that the creator of a
flawed piece of software should first be notified and, depending on
the seriousness of the flaw, allowed a certain amount of time to
create a patch to fix the problem.

On Wednesday, just hours after Microsoft announced its newest tools
for creating .Net and Windows applications, security company Cigital
revealed that the software giant's Visual C++.Net and Visual C++
version 7 had a flaw that effectively rendered a security feature
ineffectual.

Gary McGraw, chief technology officer for Cigital, said the company
followed the unwritten rules of responsible disclosure in the
company's announcement.

"Our policy depends on the nature of the flaw," he said. "If it's
something that's out there and leaves normal users open to a 'script
kiddie' attack, much more time is required before disclosing the
flaw." The security community uses the term "script kiddie" to
describe online vandals who are not that technically adept.

In this case, however, McGraw said the tools were just announced, so
it was more important to let developers know not to use the
compromised feature.

The feature, known as the GS flag, is a software switch that can be
turned on when a program is compiled. Any program built with the
switch turned on has additional code that checks for a frequent
security problem, known as a buffer overflow, whenever the program is
running. However, because of the software bug, a malicious attacker
can easily bypass the feature, McGraw said.

That means that while the problem doesn't make a program less secure,
the feature promises much more than it actually delivers, he said.

"Is this a super-terrible flaw? Absolutely not," McGraw said. "It is a
flaw in a feature that we are urging developers not to use because
they will have a false sense of security."

That may not cut the mustard with Microsoft.

The software titan has been on the warpath about responsible
disclosure since last summer. In November the company formed a
yet-to-be-named organization to create a set of standards for
releasing information about software vulnerabilities.

"We were just notified about this yesterday morning," a Microsoft
representative said Thursday. "That raises issues about responsible
reporting practices."

Coincidentally, the Redmond, Wash., company is in the middle of
reviewing the entire Windows code base for security problems. The
efforts come a month after company Chairman Bill Gates sent a memo to
all employees urging them to put security and privacy first.

Yet, other security experts argue that in this case, Cigital is on
safe ground.

While it would have been more prudent to deal with Microsoft and give
the giant time to respond, notifying the public of the flaw was a
reasonable solution, said Chris Wysopal, director of research and
development for network protection company @Stake.

"The disclosure doesn't give the bad guys a leg up," he said. "I don't
think it's putting people at risk when Cigital released this
information."

Last year, Cigital had been considered as a potential reviewer to
check Microsoft's .Net security technology for flaws, but it lost the
competition. Some have speculated that Cigital publicized this flaw
out of spite.

Cigital's McGraw took issue with the implications. "There is
absolutely no truth in that whatsoever," he said. "We are very much
convinced that we did the right thing and we did it in an honorable
way."

In addition to the outside review of the .Net framework code, done by
security company Foundstone, Microsoft spent a month in December
reviewing the Visual Studio.Net tools for problems. They clearly have
room for improvement, said McGraw, so developers should learn to count
on only themselves to produce secure code.

"It is important for developers to really learn how to design things
to be secure," he said, "not to rely on compiler magic to make
security problems go away."



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