DocumentCode
274848
Title
Telling the goodguys: disseminating information on security holes
Author
Stoll, Cliff
Author_Institution
Harvard-Smithsonian Obs., Cambridge, MA, USA
fYear
1988
fDate
12-16 Dec 1988
Firstpage
216
Lastpage
218
Abstract
The author discusses what should be done by a software vendor when the product has a security flaw. One alternative, which the author discounts, is to hide the problem and hope it will not be discovered. The alternative, favored by the author, is to widely publicize the patch, hoping that `badguys´ will not reverse engineer it to discover the hole. Several variations are proposed, including distributing an encrypted version of the patch and later publicizing the keyword, and distributing the patch as or on a benign virus
Keywords
DP industry; computer software; information dissemination; security of data; benign virus; encrypted version; keyword; patch; security flaw; security holes; software vendor; Astrophysics; Books; Communication system security; Computer bugs; Computer viruses; Information security; Observatories; Reverse engineering; Software systems; Testing;
fLanguage
English
Publisher
ieee
Conference_Titel
Aerospace Computer Security Applications Conference, 1988., Fourth
Conference_Location
Orlando, FL
Print_ISBN
0-8186-0895-1
Type
conf
DOI
10.1109/ACSAC.1988.113444
Filename
113444
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