Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Vulnerabilities quickly mitigated by security-conscious vendors

As you are likely aware, I spend a fair bit of time heckling those I believe deserving due to their shortcomings with regard to protecting online consumers.
I do, however, continue to seek opportunities to shed positive light as well, and recent responses from a number of vendor/developers warrant an opportunity to do just that.
In the last 30 days, I've discovered vulnerabilities in products from four different vendors, and advised them all immediately upon discovery. Usually, that's where the story ends, as sadly, my repeated requests for action are often ignored. The last 30 days have proven to be entirely different, with swift responses and action from ALL vendors to whom I reported vulnerabilities. In all cases I received replies within 24 hours or less, and patches/fixes/updates were typically released within 24-72 additional hours. These are exemplary responses, and reflect why I choose to conduct vulnerability research. I believe we, as web application professionals (both developers and security practitioners), are beholden to the greater public and must endeavor to protect the online safety of the Internet consumer.
To each of these vendors/developers I'd like to issue a hearty "well done" and issue public kudos for their diligence and security consciousness, on behalf of consumers and website operators.
To Lukas of PlanetLuc, Jasper and Eric of Infrae/Silva, Alexander of CompactCMS, and Peter from ActiveCampaign may I say that your efforts are greatly appreciated. Where too few choose to do the right thing, your responses leave us with the perception of caring and integrity.
Thank you.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Russ - i'd say let's thank YOU for helping us to improve affetced scripts.

Anonymous said...

And thank you for your patience in explaining exactly what had to be done to improve the security of our applications :).

Xander.

Anonymous said...

You make a good point: those of us more on the side of development play just as big a role as the security practitioners. Erm, too bad TicketMaster didn't respond like these guys. ;]

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