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What VERT Presented at Hacker Halted
VERT presented an implementation of a protocol independent fuzzer, which was built using python. We developed a fuzzer because we noticed some oddities when we were developing an RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) library for Tripwire IP360 vulnerability management. The fuzzer works by sending manipulated packets to a host and seeing how the service responds. Ultimately, we did find an issue that was fixed in the April 2014 Patch Tuesday, a vulnerability with the verification of the MAC Signature that we responsibly disclosed to Microsoft.What I Hope the Audience Gained...
The audience seemed shocked when I answered a question about how long it took Microsoft to fix the vulnerability. It took Microsoft about 5 months since the initial date of when the vulnerability was reported to produce a patch. What we need to remember is that it does take time to produce a patch. A vendor can have many things that could come up that could interrupt the development and testing of a patch. Say, for example, a vulnerability is publicly disclosed and exploited in the wild, I would expect the vendor to patch that vulnerability first. Testing can also take time as a patch could cause unforeseen results, especially when accounting for all the third party applications that could interact with the patched system. I hope, if anything was taken out of the presentation, that it was the idea of responsible disclosure. I know some people would disagree with me, but the best use of information is sometimes to minimize the audience that knows about an issue. Giving out information about a vulnerability to the wrong people can have unforeseen and serious consequences depending on the vulnerability.Remember: it may take time to properly produce a patch for a privately reported vulnerability.
Responsible Disclosure
There are a few steps to properly disclose a vulnerability to a vendor.- Determine if the vendor is a CVE Numbering Authority (CNA). If they are (Mitre maintains a list at: https://cve.mitre.org/cve/cna.html), you can contact the vendor directly. If they aren’t, you can request a CVE from Mitre.
- Determine the vendor security contact.
- Send all relevant information to the contact.
- You now have to follow up with the vendor until the issue has been resolved. Once resolved and a patch has been released you can release your information about the vulnerability to the public.