Date: Wed, 30 Mar 2011 15:29:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ryan Sears <rdsears@....edu>
To: "Thor (Hammer of God)" <thor@...merofgod.com>
Cc: full-disclosure <full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk>
Subject: Re: Vulnerabilities in *McAfee.com


How about the scenario in which one statically audit's some javascript sitting on a site, to notice it does something in an unsafe manner, and can be used in a XSS attack without actually making it happen?. There was no actual 'attacking' done, but there was still a vulnerability discovered. Is THAT considered an illegal act? Is putting a '<3' into a web form/comment section considered attacking it if you look at the source to see how the character translated? What if you just wanted to make an ascii heart? My point is it's a very blurry line, and there are a lot of scenarios where one may discover a vulnerability without even having to do anything.

As for the source code disclosures, there was absolutely no 'attacking' done. This was a huge oversight in the site devs, and they were giving that information to anyone who requested it, plain and simple. What about the Tumblr incident that happened a while ago? Just because they screwed up a production script, they ended up leaking massive amounts of internal infrastructure details, as well as private API keys, and other stuff that could be used for nefarious means. Is it illegal to visit that page? I think not, as THEY were putting the information out there (albeit by accident), but I as a user have no way to know that. 

I understand what you're saying about them not asking people to look for bugs, but it IS the internet. Companies don't typically ask external people to audit their executables either, but people do it for a number of reasons (mainly education). 

If they leave their site up, people will potentially poke at it. That's just the way it is. If I have a vested interest in a company (be it monetary or simply supporting it's cause), I personally want to see the site flourish, because I am then a part of that site. I want to make sure that my personal information is protected, and if I do find a bug somewhere, I report it. I recently found a XSS in OpenDNS's landing page, and they were very appreciative, very professional, and prompt to respond. This made me WANT to work with them further to ensure that their infrastructure was hardened to other forms of attack as well. I don't disclose these sorts of issues publicly, because I give the developers a chance to fix it, and in my past experience most companies are happy that I reported an issue, because I could have just as easily not said anything. If it does come down to it though, I follow my own public disclosure policy (http://talesofacoldadmin.com/disclosure.html) based off Rain Forest Puppy's. It basically just asks for somewhat consistent lines of communication after I disclose something. If the communication drops (or is non-existent), then it's at my own discretion to disclose it in a public forum. 

I don't HAVE to disclose anything to anyone, I CHOOSE to disclose it, but if choosing to disclose something (even in private) means potential legal troubles, then that takes away the motivation for me to disclose it in any form. I'm still going to be finding bugs for my own educational purposes, but I'll just stop disclosing them. That in itself starts to undermine the internet as a whole, leading to the restriction of information exchange, which is appalling. 

It IS technically illegal to do these sorts of tests without consent, but at what point DOES it become a 'test'? There's some cases, granted, in which the intention is clear (testing for blind SQL injections, etc) as they leave a huge footprint, but there's no explicitly clear line in which it becomes illegal. Is adding a ' to my name illegal? What if my 70+ year old grandmother did it by accident? Could she be persecuted as well? You can't apply the law to only some situations and not others. 

I also point you to one of my favorite XKCD's => http://xkcd.com/327/

Is naming your kid something like that technically illegal? Then that starts getting into free-speech issues, which are most certainly protected by the constitution. If I want my name to be "Ann <!@...^&*()> Hero", and the site doesn't explicitly tell me I can't do so, then how can I be expected to reasonably know where their boundaries are? I don't see any terms of use for using their website anywhere. 

This is all just my opinion though, and sorry for the long message!

Ryan

----- Original Message -----
From: "Thor (Hammer of God)" <thor@...merofgod.com>
To: "Ryan Sears" <rdsears@....edu>, noloader@...il.com
Cc: "full-disclosure" <full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk>
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 2:12:37 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: RE: [Full-disclosure] Vulnerabilities in *McAfee.com

Well, I think there is a flip side to this, and that is the fact that no one is asking these people to inspect their sites for vulnerabilities.   They are taking it upon themselves to scan the sites actively looking for vulnerabilities for the sole purpose of exposing them.  They may say that they are doing it "to ensure that the vendors fix their problems" but it's not really any of their business to do so.    

I think someone would be hard pressed to justify (defend) their actions when they basically "attack" a site that they don't own, without permission, with the express intent of finding a vulnerability.  That's the difference between a "test" and an "attack."   It doesn't matter how trivial their finds are, or what the outcome of the scan is, it is the fact that no one asked, nor wants them to do this.  

Technically, what they are doing is in fact illegal - in the US anyway.   So there is another aspect of this that deserves some discussion, I think.

t


>-----Original Message-----
>From: full-disclosure-bounces@...ts.grok.org.uk [mailto:full-disclosure-
>bounces@...ts.grok.org.uk] On Behalf Of Ryan Sears
>Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 10:45 AM
>To: noloader@...il.com
>Cc: full-disclosure
>Subject: Re: [Full-disclosure] Vulnerabilities in *McAfee.com
>
>Seriously. I gotta say I feel like people at Cenzic (and Mcafee for that matter),
>if anyone should understand that a XSS should really only be construed a
>'criminal act' if it's indeed used to attack someone. If a group is taking the time
>out of their day to find and disclose issues to Mcafee, they should probably be
>thankful. What about finding a vulnerability in Mcafee's virus scanner? Could
>that be construed as a 'criminal act' if they disclose it? Where do you draw the
>line?
>
>Basically this sort of thing pushes the community into silence until something
>truly criminal happens. I'm not saying give anyone massive amounts of credit
>for publishing a few XSS bugs (because there's millions of them out there),
>but don't label them as a criminal for trying to help. That's just idiotic IMO.
>
>If you run an enterprise level solution for antivirus AND web vulnerability
>testing, the community understands that it's a process not unlike any other.
>There will be bugs, but it only demolishes the image of Mcafee to see them
>handle it like this in particular. If they would have been appreciative about it,
>and promptly fixed their website (or at the very least maintained friendly
>contact) this incident would have pretty much gone un-noticed.
>
>Look at LastPass as an example.
>
>http://blog.lastpass.com/2011/02/cross-site-scripting-vulnerability.html
>
>They had someone poking at their site, who managed to find a XSS bug using
>CRLF injections. They were appreciative of the find, 2.5 hrs later the issue was
>fixed, and there was that blog post about exactly what they were going to do
>about it. They took full responsibility for the fact that THEIR coding was to
>blame, and basically said 'This is what happened, and this is why it will
>probably never happen again'. This spoke hugely to me (as I'm sure it did the
>rest of the community) because it shows a company that's willing to admit it
>made a mistake, as opposed to sitting on their haunches and blaming people
>for looking for these sorts of bugs. Oh and not every customer of their service
>has to pay massive licensing fees, as there's a free version as well. In my mind
>at least this equates to a company that cares more about their customers that
>don't pay a single dime, then a company who forces people to pay massive
>amounts of coin for shaky automated scanning and services. That's just the
>way I see it though.
>
>
>Someone's gotta tell the emperor he has no clothes on.
>
>Ryan
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Jeffrey Walton" <noloader@...il.com>
>To: "YGN Ethical Hacker Group" <lists@...g.net>
>Cc: "full-disclosure" <full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk>
>Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2011 1:05:42 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
>Subject: Re: [Full-disclosure] Vulnerabilities in *McAfee.com
>
>On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 8:44 AM, YGN Ethical Hacker Group <lists@...g.net>
>wrote:
>> According to xssed.com,  there are two remaining XSS issues:
>>
>> https://kb.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id="; alert(1); //
>> https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id="; alert(1); //
>>
>>
>> You guys know our disclosed issues are very simple and can easily be
>> found through viewing HTML/JS source codes and simple Google Hacking
>>
>(http://www.google.com/search?q=%22%3C%25+Dim++site%3Adownload.m
>cafee.com).
>>
>> However,  it was criticized as 'illegal break-in' by Cenzic's CMO,
>> http://www.cenzic.com/company/management/khera/,  according to
>Network
>> World News editor - Ellen Messmer.  Thus, the next target is Cenzic
>> web site. Let's see how strong the Kung-Fu of Cenzic HailStorm scanner
>> is.
>Too funny.... I wonder is Aaron Barr is consulting for Cenzic.
>
>Jeff
>
>>> [SNIP]
>
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>_______________________________________________
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_______________________________________________
Full-Disclosure - We believe in it.
Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html
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