5 ms·

I'm for cool research, but I am also tired of the trend where security companies come up with a flashy name, logo, url, etc. for every exploit/vuln.

lima 6y ago
Why?
- generalizations 6y ago
  It reeks of marketing, which is antithetical to the hacker spirit?
  - notretarded 6y ago
    Good.. Instantly recognisable name for e-peen augmentation, enters lexicon of general public easily, media outlets can spam it easier, vendors hand forced to fix promptly. This is hardly a bad thing.
  - Talanes 6y ago
    If it's antithetical, why do open source projects tend to have cute little mascots?
cghendrix 6y ago
Yeah the little SIM card face cringed me out
malwrar 6y ago
I'm the opposite. Security researchers have struggled for decades to get people to fix their stuff after discovering something is broken. When a vuln has a human-readable name that sounds vaguely scary, even nontechnical decision makers can ask good questions like "are we vulnerable to this 'heartbleed' thing?". Anecdotal, but I've definitely noticed people talking about them; I've seen articles in mainstream press referencing some of these named vulns and have even had friends who are otherwise uninterested in computers ask me about them! Certainly there's a self-serving glamorous aspect to it on the part of security researchers, but fun names and logos brings attention to issues that otherwise result in eyes glazing over. As much as this stuff makes me cringe to read, I'm willing to bet the branding for this issue will result in more eyes on it and probably will result in a fix. That's ultimately what vuln disclosure is about, after all.
justinclift 6y ago
Yeah, the in-your-face advert right before the main text is very spammy too: "Do you know if attacks like like Simjacker or other next generation attacks are happening in your network? Book a meeting [with us to find out]." The website feels like a con/ad rather than something legit.

lima 6y ago

Why?

generalizations 6y ago
It reeks of marketing, which is antithetical to the hacker spirit?
- notretarded 6y ago
  Good.. Instantly recognisable name for e-peen augmentation, enters lexicon of general public easily, media outlets can spam it easier, vendors hand forced to fix promptly. This is hardly a bad thing.
- Talanes 6y ago
  If it's antithetical, why do open source projects tend to have cute little mascots?

cghendrix 6y ago

Yeah the little SIM card face cringed me out

malwrar 6y ago

I'm the opposite. Security researchers have struggled for decades to get people to fix their stuff after discovering something is broken. When a vuln has a human-readable name that sounds vaguely scary, even nontechnical decision makers can ask good questions like "are we vulnerable to this 'heartbleed' thing?". Anecdotal, but I've definitely noticed people talking about them; I've seen articles in mainstream press referencing some of these named vulns and have even had friends who are otherwise uninterested in computers ask me about them! Certainly there's a self-serving glamorous aspect to it on the part of security researchers, but fun names and logos brings attention to issues that otherwise result in eyes glazing over. As much as this stuff makes me cringe to read, I'm willing to bet the branding for this issue will result in more eyes on it and probably will result in a fix. That's ultimately what vuln disclosure is about, after all.

justinclift 6y ago

Yeah, the in-your-face advert right before the main text is very spammy too: "Do you know if attacks like like Simjacker or other next generation attacks are happening in your network? Book a meeting [with us to find out]." The website feels like a con/ad rather than something legit.