Flaws drill holes in open-source databases

TalkBack 32 of 44:

Next »

« Previous

• Thread View
• Flat View

Wrong

According to the article I read they alerted the major players that use the system earlier and after many of these were patched, they informed the rest of the community through articles like this and other major forms of communication. No one was hiding anything. They were just allowing a fix to be made so major open source distributions would not be compromised.

There is a huge difference between patching a system used to house code to the rest of the world and a server a company uses for business reasons. So doing this quietly makes sense in this situation. It reduces the chance of compromise, tests the patch on those other systems and still allows time to fix any problems.

Now compare this to Microsoft. They have to be beaten down with a stick to admit the flaw. They insist it is not a real problem while they are writing the patch code. Then they admit the problem and publish the patch which proceeds to either not work, cause slowdowns or crashes. Or in many cases, breaks something else because they had to rush it our under pressure to save face.

Neither approach is good in most cases. But sometimes an approach that is quiet may be best to preserve security. Besides it is poor form to announce a flaw until there is a fix for it. It is their responsibility to report to the software makers and allow some time to correct the problem before you announce to the world ?hack me, hack me?.

Posted by: MG_z   Posted on: 05/21/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

Alert moderator to an offensive message

Subscribe to this discussion via Email or RSS

SponsoredWhite Papers, Webcasts, and Downloads

• Get top-ranked Novell support for Red Hat when you switch Novell If Linux is going to power your mission-critical applications, you'd ... Download Now
• Why Isn't Server Virtualization Saving Us More? A Few Small Changes May Dramatically Increase Your Efficiency VMware Companies have rapidly adopted server virtualization over the past few ... Download Now
• Three Steps You Need to Know to Stop Data Loss Varonis Sensitive data exposed to misuse or loss... it is the stuff of nightmares ... Download Now