3 ms·
Well, this is a totally awful development. In the 80s the idea of white worms being used to patch vulnerabilities was rejected for good reason, so I have to thi
by sennight 6y ago
Well, this is a totally awful development. In the 80s the idea of white worms being used to patch vulnerabilities was rejected for good reason, so I have to think this has little to do with security and much more to do with normalizing behavior that really shouldn't be tolerated. They didn't even patch the hole...
Before anyone tries framing it as a service to the security of the majority - understand that this is the introduction of a new attack vector: state actors hamfistedly bumbling around your network while "doing you a favor". If the threat even approached a level justifying this kind of action, the far more effective and less damaging approach would be directing upstream networks to blackhole routes to the machines.
- waihtis 6y agoIn less than 18 months there will be a startup (likely from Israel) who will provide this kind of service for US Government, and it will normalize and move from state to commercial /prediction
- austinheap 6y agoIt’s not a development. Court-authorized public/private patching initiatives have long existed. They’re much higher profile and news worthy theses days, though.
- sennight 6y agoCare to provide an example of the USG leveraging a vulnerability to delete files on hundreds of domestic servers without the permission or knowledge of the owners? Because the closest thing I can think of involves the military targeting a foreign botnet. I know Microsoft went after a botnet with a forced Windows update mechanism, but Microsoft isn't the FBI and their update system is a known quantity.