RE: [Full-Disclosure] Avoiding being a good admin - was DCOM RPC exploit (dcom.c)

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To: full-disclosure@lists.netsys.com
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 10:04:48 +0100

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jason [mailto:security@brvenik.com]
> Sent: 29 July 2003 18:15
> To: full-disclosure@lists.netsys.com
> Subject: Re: [Full-Disclosure] Avoiding being a good admin - was DCOM
> RPC exploit (dcom.c)
>
[snip]
> It can be done and it is hard and it cold be expensive but the
> alternative is more expensive and more difficult.
>
>
I have only one thing to say you Jason, and that is "pragmatism". It would
be fantastic to be able to patch every machine on every corporate network.
Unfortunately it isn't feasible for the financial reasons already stated. It
may be a little unfair me criticising your maths (especially when I scraped
through the maths half of my degree), but you should check your figures
before posting to a list like this.

Guarding the borders of your network is where it really matters, just like
any country does with its own borders. Do you have locks on all the internal
doors of your house, or just the external doors? I suspect it's just the
external ones, and possibly one other.

I suggest you read the biblical books of Jonah and Jeremiah and ask yourself
which one would you like to be? Would you prefer to be Jonah, warning of
impending doom and then when people take notice you lose face (it's already
happened to many people with the Y2K bug). Or would you prefer to be
Jeremiah, warning of impending doom and being proved right when no-one takes
notice? Neither are very appealing.

We in IT are forever being like Jonah, warning of doom if we don't do X and
Y, and it doesn't happen because it gets done (eventually). On the occasions
when it isn't done in time, our credibility doesn't go up even if we are
right like Jeremiah. We certainly don't ever want to gloat about it.

Fortunately I have a thick skin, and my troll detector is on yellow
(elevated) alert.

-
John Airey, BSc (Jt Hons), CNA, RHCE
Internet systems support officer, ITCSD, Royal National Institute of the
Blind,
Bakewell Road, Peterborough PE2 6XU,
Tel.: +44 (0) 1733 375299 Fax: +44 (0) 1733 370848 John.Airey@rnib.org.uk

The trouble with post-modernism isn't just that no-one actually believes in
it, but no-one can believe in it.

-

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