4 ms·

Question is what you gain by knowing the version. Better just fire your arsenal of attacks than waste time trying to figure this out as many sites will hide the

Question is what you gain by knowing the version. Better just fire your arsenal of attacks than waste time trying to figure this out as many sites will hide these things anyways.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mixedCase 5y ago
While a bit of an extreme scenario, I can imagine it being useful for high-level actors with their own private vulns which they'd like to keep on the down low unless absolutely necessary.
jen20 5y ago
By knowing the version, you can more efficiently determine which CVEs may apply, surely?
dmitriid 5y ago
The arsenal of attacks includes "let's try and figure out server version", too. Because if you know the version, it gives you a shortcut, and you can immediately switch to a smaller arsenal designed for that specific version.
- notfed 5y ago
  On an individual basis it's sometimes hard to see the harm in this. But more specifically the problem with version identifiers is that attackers can scan across many servers, iterating which ones have a certain vulnerable version.
mrob 5y ago
Exploiting a memory corruption vulnerability depends on the exact details of the software version and platform. Attempting the wrong exploit risks crashing the process, which might be noticed and investigated.
teh_klev 5y ago
Not sure why you're being downvoted. Your question is reasonable and any attacker worth their salt will fire a full arsenal of all the CVE's at your environment regardless of version. Hiding version numbers etc is an example of "Security through obscurity" and is a weak defence strategy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity
- stevenhuang 5y ago
  An attacker worth their salt will most definitely not fire all their CVEs at risk of crashing the target process or leaving it in an undefined state. And your second point is debatable. See defense in depth.

Question is what you gain by knowing the version. Better just fire your arsenal of attacks than waste time trying to figure this out as many sites will hide these things anyways.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mixedCase 5y ago

While a bit of an extreme scenario, I can imagine it being useful for high-level actors with their own private vulns which they'd like to keep on the down low unless absolutely necessary.

jen20 5y ago

By knowing the version, you can more efficiently determine which CVEs may apply, surely?

dmitriid 5y ago

The arsenal of attacks includes "let's try and figure out server version", too. Because if you know the version, it gives you a shortcut, and you can immediately switch to a smaller arsenal designed for that specific version.

notfed 5y ago
On an individual basis it's sometimes hard to see the harm in this. But more specifically the problem with version identifiers is that attackers can scan across many servers, iterating which ones have a certain vulnerable version.

mrob 5y ago

Exploiting a memory corruption vulnerability depends on the exact details of the software version and platform. Attempting the wrong exploit risks crashing the process, which might be noticed and investigated.

teh_klev 5y ago

Not sure why you're being downvoted. Your question is reasonable and any attacker worth their salt will fire a full arsenal of all the CVE's at your environment regardless of version. Hiding version numbers etc is an example of "Security through obscurity" and is a weak defence strategy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity

stevenhuang 5y ago
An attacker worth their salt will most definitely not fire all their CVEs at risk of crashing the target process or leaving it in an undefined state. And your second point is debatable. See defense in depth.