6 ms·

Can't believe they designed a logo especially for this worm (and gave a fancy name). There's apparently a marketing campaign in vulnerability discoveries too.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
boobsbr 12y ago
A crappy logo.
daeken 12y ago
This is brand new. After Heartbleed, people realized that branding vulnerabilities is great for driving business. A year ago, this was unheard of.
- monstermonster 12y ago
  Yes. This absolutely fucking sickens me. It instantly gives news agencies an excuse to pick up every little hole and scare all the mortals into submission. Security has become a marketing and media circus now which in turn desensitizes people to real concerns and rational thought.
  - louhike 12y ago
    Unfortunatly, it is not really new. It was already the case in the Windows 98/XP-era when the antivirus business started to grow quickly.
  - jenscow 12y ago
    I do see your point, however sometimes it is a good thing to let everyone know about it, so they're able to do something about it. For example, my manager even heard about "shell shock" and prompted me to do something about it. Although, it was over a week after the outbreak, and we'd already established we weren't vulnerable (applied the patch anyway) - but even so!
    - monstermonster 12y ago
      Yes at least 20 of our clients phoned up about this as well which is funny because we don't have any Linux machines at all.
  - muyuu 12y ago
    It was bound to happen as most things well suited to the market.
  - justaman 12y ago
    By labeling a bug with a catchy name it enables conversation. If there is one thing the world of security needs it more conversation. More talk == more $$$.
- 3rd3 12y ago
  It also helps spreading the news and thus fixing the problem.
  - zorbo 12y ago
    Until the scare-tactics wear off and fancy names for vulnerabilities no longer trigger my "this is big" response.
- regularfry 12y ago
  It was never quite this overt, but giving cute names to viruses goes back a long way.
wjk 12y ago
And their map suggests that poland is in the middle of russia. What the hell.
Graham24 12y ago
I wonder if it's someone's job to come up with these titles and logos?
- jenscow 12y ago
  And could you imagine putting the announcement on hold because the designer isn't 100% happy with his work... ?
bhouston 12y ago
Yeah, I think they do this because if they can make a catchy name and logo, it becomes the focus of the media and I think they must pull in like a million hits or more to these articles. That is valuable if you have something to sell. I think that soon there will be multiple names for each new vulerability with multiple logo-ed/brand-ed info pages. And then this trend will start to die out. But for now, you should be worried about the latest Vulnerability[tm].
Robin_Message 12y ago
It looks like a sandworm from the computer games and shitty [1] film adaption of the Dune series by Frank Herbert [2]. [1] The games were great, if unrelated to the story. The film is ridiculous and uses the books merely as backdrop. [2] Pedantic I know, but the books had pictures on the covers that showed exactly what a sandworm should look like – e.g. visible crystal teeth of a size that could be made into a dagger (a crysknife) and a hot furnace behind – not three weird flaps around a dark mouth.
josefresco 12y ago
In defense of "branding" vulnerabilities ... Heartbleed was the first instance where "normal" people were asking me if I had heard about it and if it effected me/my business. Attribution and PR aside, branding these helps educate the public and give them something tangible to call it/discuss.
- bshimmin 12y ago
  And it really makes life easier when you have to explain downtime to your clients, who are often "normal people" and won't understand what SSL is but will have seen Heartbleed on the news and will probably remember it when you say the name. (I'm not sure Shellshock got quite the same coverage, but maybe I'm wrong there.)
MichaelGG 12y ago
At least Heartbleed and Shellshock made sense. Sandworm is just trying to play up fear for a boring not-really-remote vuln. And, the vulnerability is not a worm. It's shitty marketing.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

boobsbr 12y ago

A crappy logo.

daeken 12y ago

This is brand new. After Heartbleed, people realized that branding vulnerabilities is great for driving business. A year ago, this was unheard of.

monstermonster 12y ago
Yes. This absolutely fucking sickens me. It instantly gives news agencies an excuse to pick up every little hole and scare all the mortals into submission. Security has become a marketing and media circus now which in turn desensitizes people to real concerns and rational thought.
- louhike 12y ago
  Unfortunatly, it is not really new. It was already the case in the Windows 98/XP-era when the antivirus business started to grow quickly.
- jenscow 12y ago
  I do see your point, however sometimes it is a good thing to let everyone know about it, so they're able to do something about it. For example, my manager even heard about "shell shock" and prompted me to do something about it. Although, it was over a week after the outbreak, and we'd already established we weren't vulnerable (applied the patch anyway) - but even so!
  - monstermonster 12y ago
    Yes at least 20 of our clients phoned up about this as well which is funny because we don't have any Linux machines at all.
- muyuu 12y ago
  It was bound to happen as most things well suited to the market.
- justaman 12y ago
  By labeling a bug with a catchy name it enables conversation. If there is one thing the world of security needs it more conversation. More talk == more $$$.
3rd3 12y ago
It also helps spreading the news and thus fixing the problem.
- zorbo 12y ago
  Until the scare-tactics wear off and fancy names for vulnerabilities no longer trigger my "this is big" response.
regularfry 12y ago
It was never quite this overt, but giving cute names to viruses goes back a long way.

wjk 12y ago

And their map suggests that poland is in the middle of russia. What the hell.

Graham24 12y ago

I wonder if it's someone's job to come up with these titles and logos?

jenscow 12y ago
And could you imagine putting the announcement on hold because the designer isn't 100% happy with his work... ?

bhouston 12y ago

Yeah, I think they do this because if they can make a catchy name and logo, it becomes the focus of the media and I think they must pull in like a million hits or more to these articles. That is valuable if you have something to sell. I think that soon there will be multiple names for each new vulerability with multiple logo-ed/brand-ed info pages. And then this trend will start to die out. But for now, you should be worried about the latest Vulnerability[tm].

Robin_Message 12y ago

It looks like a sandworm from the computer games and shitty [1] film adaption of the Dune series by Frank Herbert [2]. [1] The games were great, if unrelated to the story. The film is ridiculous and uses the books merely as backdrop. [2] Pedantic I know, but the books had pictures on the covers that showed exactly what a sandworm should look like – e.g. visible crystal teeth of a size that could be made into a dagger (a crysknife) and a hot furnace behind – not three weird flaps around a dark mouth.

josefresco 12y ago

In defense of "branding" vulnerabilities ... Heartbleed was the first instance where "normal" people were asking me if I had heard about it and if it effected me/my business. Attribution and PR aside, branding these helps educate the public and give them something tangible to call it/discuss.

bshimmin 12y ago
And it really makes life easier when you have to explain downtime to your clients, who are often "normal people" and won't understand what SSL is but will have seen Heartbleed on the news and will probably remember it when you say the name. (I'm not sure Shellshock got quite the same coverage, but maybe I'm wrong there.)

MichaelGG 12y ago

At least Heartbleed and Shellshock made sense. Sandworm is just trying to play up fear for a boring not-really-remote vuln. And, the vulnerability is not a worm. It's shitty marketing.