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As a nitpick, you’re describing coordinated disclosure. Branding it as “responsible” puts the thumb on the scale that somehow not coordinating with the vendor
by akerl_ 1y ago
As a nitpick, you’re describing coordinated disclosure.
Branding it as “responsible” puts the thumb on the scale that somehow not coordinating with the vendor is irresponsible.
- LadyCailin 1y agoI would say that it is responsible disclosure. Or anyways, not doing that is irresponsible disclosure. The corporation may be hurt by early disclosure, and that’s whatever, but very often, there are a ton of ordinary people that are collateral damage, and the only thing they did wrong was exist in a society where handing over hoards of personal data to a huge corporation is unavoidable. So yes, anyone who discloses before the company has had a reasonable chance to fix things is indeed irresponsible.
- dns_snek 1y agoYou're assuming that the choice is between immediate public disclosure and coordinated disclosure. Doing "the responsible thing" takes effort that is often disrespected (sometimes to the extreme). I'm so sick and tired of some companies that any vulnerability I find in their products going forward is an immediate public disclosure. It's either that or no disclosure, and it would be irresponsible not to disclose it at all.
- bobmcnamara 1y agoAgreed. Cracked a thrift store IoT medical device. Contacted vendor. They sent me a one way NDA. Lol no.
- dns_snek 1y agoI've been trapped in a quasi-NDA on bug bounty platforms too. The vendor just refused to make the report public long after the vulnerability had been fixed, likely to cover it up in case of any resulting damages claims (it was a financial platform and the bug affected withdrawals of customer funds). The platform knows my identity, publishing the details would be against their terms, there's an implied threat that they could take legal action against me if I published the details, and they even low-balled the severity to avoid paying out the appropriate amount. Awesome experience overall.
- akerl_ 1y agoWhat about users who are affected by the vulnerability in the time it takes between reporting to the vendor and remediation?
- llbbdd 1y agoThat's the tradeoff. If you disclose it broadly without a grace period, someone who didn't even know about the vulnerability before will exploit it faster than even the best postured companies can fix it.
- akerl_ 1y agoThat seems to depend a lot on the vulnerability, and the company, and the users. I'm not suggesting in this thread that coordinating with vendors is bad. I'm suggesting that to frame any non-coordinated disclosure as inherently irresponsible is bad, and that is what is implied when we use the label "responsible disclosure" for "coordinated disclosure".
- bobmcnamara 1y agoThis seems to presume the company is ready and willing to take feedback. Maybe things are better now. Years ago the only contact for many companies was through customer service. "What do you mean you're in our computer? You're obviously on the phone!"
- immibis 1y agoAlso "Oh, you hacked us? We'll call the police right away. You're going to jail." - followed by you actually going to jail for many years. Sometimes, anonymous, public, uncoordinated disclosure actually leads to the best security outcome in the long run, since security researchers in jail isn't that.
- bobmcnamara 1y agoYes. I live in a state where a journalist reported a Department of Education system leaking teacher SSNs and the governor sent state troopers after him. Doing the right thing can be awfully unpleasant.
- bigiain 1y ago> This seems to presume the company is ready and willing to take feedback. Near the bottom of the blog post it says: > When | What Happened > Day 1, same day | RBI fixes everything faster than you can say "code red" > Credit where it's due – RBI's response time was impressive.
- bobmcnamara 1y agoOops. I mean that generally my experiences have been less good
- parineum 1y agoWhat you're describing as branding is actually an opinion. Calling it branding (with it's negative connotations) is putting the thumb on the scale.
- akerl_ 1y agoI’m saying out loud “I think rebranding coordinated disclosure as responsible disclosure has negative impacts and we shouldn’t do it”. Thats not putting my thumb on the scale so much as shouting my opinion. The rebrand puts its thumb on the scale specifically because it avoids saying “we think non-coordinated disclose is irresponsible”; it sneaks it under the name change.
- billy99k 1y agoIt is irresponsible. It brings attention to an issue that has not yet been resolved, which will likely lead to users getting data stolen/scammed. Even the most security-aware companies have a process to fix vulnerabilities, which takes time. I would never hire someone that doesn't reaponsibly coordinate with the vendor. In most cases it's either malicious or shows a complete lack of good judgement. In the case of bobdajrhacker? Both.
- 93po 1y agousers at large have a right to know if their data is being handled recklessly by any person or group, and just because some entity has arbitrary rules and poor communication/practices on how they want to tell them disclosures, it doesn't in any way make it irresponsible to let the public know: hey, your shit is getting recorded and is available for anyone to download and listen to.
- saagarjha 1y agoAre you in a position to hire security engineers?
- siffin 1y agoIt could never be anywhere near as irresponsible as the original bad security practices, though. At some point, if you wanna make money by handling people's sensitive data, you are the responsible party, not everyone else.
- Retric 1y agoSome companies will keep systems vulnerable indefinitely. If a company hasn’t fixed the issue in a year, public disclosure is likely a better option than doing nothing.
- kevincox 1y agoYes, that is why responsible disclosure almost always comes with deadlines. You give the chance for the company to resolve the issue and mitigate user impact. But if they are taking so long that the user impact will be higher than you just disclose.