5 ms·

Okay half a million, it’s still a lot of deaths. Has a zero day in a web browser directly resulted in anyone’s death?

berkes 6y ago
While this is interesting on itself, it does not make any claim valid or invalid. Proving that A is worse than B does not prove that A is good or that B is bad. Or, if you are more mathematical: a > b does not prove that b < 0 or a > 0, where 0 is neutral. And as I point out above: this was not meant as comparison but as analogy. If my analogy affected anyone, I sincerely apologise.
mulmen 6y ago
Not half a million either. Patients have died in ransomware attacks. Not half a million patients or even a quarter million but still, a browser zero day can be a threat to human life.
- dubcanada 6y ago
  Now you’re just arguing for the sake of arguing. There was 150,000 + 200,000 reported deaths. Those are also rounded figures. So 350,000.
  - mulmen 6y ago
    I am using the numbers from the Wikipedia summary. I also checked to see if those numbers include long-term effects which is unclear from my cursory review. I don’t know how many people are in hospitals with life threatening conditions but I suspect it is more than a quarter million, or even half. Based on personal experience in deskside hospital IT browser vulnerabilities are a significant vector. We spent a lot of time re-imaging machines. There have been ransomware attacks at hospitals including deaths. A coordinated attack using this vector could easily cause as many deaths as nuclear weapons have. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima... https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/hospitals-being-hit-in-coordinated-targeted-ransomware-attack-from-russian-speaking-criminals/2020/10/28/e6e48c38-196e-11eb-befb-8864259bd2d8_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/hospitals-b...

While this is interesting on itself, it does not make any claim valid or invalid. Proving that A is worse than B does not prove that A is good or that B is bad. Or, if you are more mathematical: a > b does not prove that b < 0 or a > 0, where 0 is neutral. And as I point out above: this was not meant as comparison but as analogy. If my analogy affected anyone, I sincerely apologise.

mulmen 6y ago

Not half a million either. Patients have died in ransomware attacks. Not half a million patients or even a quarter million but still, a browser zero day can be a threat to human life.

dubcanada 6y ago
Now you’re just arguing for the sake of arguing. There was 150,000 + 200,000 reported deaths. Those are also rounded figures. So 350,000.
- mulmen 6y ago
  I am using the numbers from the Wikipedia summary. I also checked to see if those numbers include long-term effects which is unclear from my cursory review. I don’t know how many people are in hospitals with life threatening conditions but I suspect it is more than a quarter million, or even half. Based on personal experience in deskside hospital IT browser vulnerabilities are a significant vector. We spent a lot of time re-imaging machines. There have been ransomware attacks at hospitals including deaths. A coordinated attack using this vector could easily cause as many deaths as nuclear weapons have. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima... https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/hospitals-being-hit-in-coordinated-targeted-ransomware-attack-from-russian-speaking-criminals/2020/10/28/e6e48c38-196e-11eb-befb-8864259bd2d8_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/hospitals-b...