I would contact someone like the vuln-help folks at security focus, CERT, etc. Not that I'm trying to shill for them, but this seems like an ideal situation where a respected, independent group (which is what they are supposed to be) can step in and club the vendor until they get a clue. If the vendor still doesn't respond, then I think you should release an advisory. Yeah, people are going to be pissed if the vendor doesn't have a fix. But, I think contacting a neutral third party (or more than one) in an attempt to get the vendor to recognize the problem will show that you are being responsible about the vulnerability. If the vendor chooses to continue to ignore the situation, let them face the media. Aaron -----Original Message----- From: Josha Bronson [mailto:dmuzat_private] Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 10:01 PM To: vuln-devat_private Subject: Complicated Disclosure Scenario Greetings fellow security folk, I would like to gather some opinions on a not so theoretical disclosure scenario. Please for the sake of focused discussion keep your replies related to the specific scenario that I am proposing and not alternate opinions on disclosure in general. The situation is thus. I have discovered a bug in a major software vendors application. Initially the bug presented itself as a way to crash the application, i.e. a DoS condition. Upon further research I determined that I was able to overwrite some return addresses by formating the overflow in a specific way. As we all know this means that there is the possibility that this could allow code to be executed on the remote system. At this point I contacted the vendor to alert them to the existence of this problem. After exchanging multiple emails, in which I tediously outlined the DoS condition and *potential* exploit situation I was told that they would wait until I determined if code could be exploited before they began creating an advisory or even working on a patch. I informed this vendor, who is by no means short on resources, that I might not be able to successfully make that determination due to constraints on my time (after all I do this for fun) and ability, as this problem exists on an architecture that I have very little experience with. I encouraged the vendor to begin their own investigation. They ignored this, and again stated that they would await my results. This is the problem as it sits. If I reach out to "the community" for additional assistance with researching this bug I might as well just send out an advisory. If I release an advisory the vendor will most likely not have a patch ready, they will feel violated and the user base will be left open to exploitation with no fix. If I do nothing, the problem persists and nothing gets accomplished, and maybe someone with not so good intentions discovers the same bug and uses it to do harm. So, what would you do? -- Josha Bronson dmuzat_private AngryPacket Security
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