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Re: [Full-Disclosure] Support the Sasser-author fund started

Seth Alan Woolley wrote:
On Sat, May 15, 2004 at 08:31:25PM -0400, Shane C. Hage wrote:

Why should Microsoft have more blame?

In my opinion, I believe that software companies, especially Microsoft, have
taken all of the appropriate steps to provide security within their
products.



Keep your head in the sand, then.  The design from the very beginning
was put together without security in mind.  Their OS revolutionized the
anti-virus industry.  There are numerous alternative operating systems
and cases where worms and viruses have been created for them (cf. the
Morris worm, slapper, etc), and most of the bandwidth in the world sits
on non-Microsoft software, mind you.

Isn't that more of a very gray area?
Yes, MS operating systems weren't really designed with security in mind until (IMO) NT4, and then- that security wasn't really pushed to the consumer until Win2k- but- that was *5 years ago* that it was.
Win2k and WinXP aren't that different from OSX or most popular Linux distros from the "number of network servers enabled" perspective-
The MS operating systems are the main source of problems for really only 2 reasons:
1) their popularity makes them the most valuable targets
2) people don't update

All of us on this list know that if all consumers ran auto-update properly and had it install stuff automatically, these worms would become very rare occurences. (while admittedly creating an interesting new set of problems)
I don't really see what more MS can be expected to do, short of shoving auto-update down everyone's throats whether they like it or not (which will bring the tinfoil-hat crowd out in force)
It is very seldom that a worm is out before the fix for the exploited vulnerability- it's just a matter of diligence.

Also- your argument of "most of the bandwidth in the world sits
on non-Microsoft software" is IMO invalid- these machines that you speak of are not operated by consumers- people are paid to keep them updated and secure.

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