"Sounds like this industry could benefit from these kids even more
since they are driving home the points you all are supposed to be
warning them about."
That's because these kids don't have mouths to feed and a paycheck to
worry about. Ethics and ethos are all very nice when you have nothing
to lose, all to gain and no one depending on you...
On Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 4:43 AM, Laurelai
<laurelai@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 1/12/12 3:34 AM, doc mombasa wrote:
i dont know if you ever worked for a big corporate entity?
like kovacs wrote its not about whether you can do it or not
as an employee its more about if your manager allows you the
time to do it
pentesting doesnt change anything on the profits excel sheet
we can agree it looks bad when shit happens but they usually
dont think that far ahead
i tried once reporting a very simple sql injection flaw to my
manager and including a proposed fix which would take all of 5
minutes to implement
18 months went by before that flaw was fixed because there was
no profits in allocating resources to fix it
and that webapp was the #1 money generator for that company
Den 12. jan. 2012 10.29 skrev Laurelai <laurelai@xxxxxxxxxxxx>:
On 1/12/12 3:27 AM, doc mombasa wrote:
just one question
why should they hire the "skiddies" if most of them
only know how to fire up sqlmap or whatever current
app is hot right now?
doesnt really seem like enough reason to hire anyone
besides im not buying the whole "they do it because
they are angry at society" plop
ive been there.. they do it for the lulz
Den 11. jan. 2012 06.18 skrev Laurelai
<laurelai@xxxxxxxxxxxx>:
On 1/10/12 10:18 PM, Byron Sonne wrote:
>> Don't piss off a talented adolescent with
computer skills.
> Amen! I love me some stylin' pwnage :)
>
> Whether they were skiddies or actual hackers,
it's still amusing (and
> frightening to some) that companies who really
should know better, in
> fact, don't.
>
And again, if companies hired these people, most
of whom come from
disadvantaged backgrounds and are self taught they
wouldn't have as much
a reason to be angry anymore. Most of them feel
like they don't have any
real opportunities for a career and they are often
right. Microsoft
hired some kid who hacked their network, it is a
safe bet he isn't going
to be causing any trouble anymore. Talking about
the trust issue, who
would you trust more the person who has all the
certs and experience
that told you your network was safe or the 14 year
old who proved him
wrong? We all know if that kid had approached
microsoft with his exploit
in a responsible manner they would have outright
ignored him, that's why
this mailing list exists, because companies will
ignore security issues
until it bites them in the ass to save a buck.
People are way too obsessed with having
certifications that don't
actually teach practical intrusion techniques. If
a system is so fragile
that teenagers can take it down with minimal
effort then there is a
serious problem with the IT security industry.
Think about it how long
has sql injection been around? There is absolutely
no excuse for being
vulnerable to it. None what so ever. These kids
are showing people the
truth about the state of security online and that
is whats making people
afraid of them. They aren't writing 0 days every
week, they are using
vulnerabilities that are publicly available. Using
tools that are
publicly available, tools that were meant to be
used by the people
protecting the systems. Clearly the people in
charge of protecting these
system aren't using these tools to scan their
systems or else they would
have found the weaknesses first.
The fact that government organizations and large
name companies and
government contractors fall prey to these types of
attacks just goes to
show the level of hypocrisy inherent to the
situation. Especially when
their solution to the problem is to just pass more
and more restrictive
laws (as if that's going to stop them). These kids
are showing people
that the emperor has no clothes and that's whats
making people angry,
they are putting someones paycheck in danger. Why
don't we solve the
problem by actually addressing the real problem
and fixing systems that
need to be fixed? Why not hire these kids with the
time and energy on
their hands to probe for these weaknesses on a
large scale? The ones
currently in the job slots to do this clearly
aren't doing it. I bet if
they started replacing these people with these
kids it would shake the
lethargy out of the rest of them and you would see
a general increase in
competence and security. Knowing that if you get
your network owned by a
teenager will not only get you fired, but replaced
with said teenager is
one hell of an incentive to make sure you get it
right.
Yes they would have to be taught additional skills
to round out what
they know, but every job requires some level of
training and there are
quite a few workplaces that will help their
employees continue their
education because it benefits the company to do
so. This would be no
different except that the employees would be
younger, and younger people
do tend to learn faster so it would likely take
less time to teach these
kids the needed skills to round out what they
already know than it would
to teach someone older the same thing. It is the
same principal behind
teaching young children multiple languages, they
learn them better than
adults.
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Because the ones in charge right now can't even seem to
fire up sqlmap now and then to see if they are vuln. And
if you really believe that they just do it for the lulz
line...
Well that's what you get when you let profit margins dictate
security policy. You guys act pretty tough when you argue with
each other online but you can't stand up to some corporate idiots?
Sounds like this industry could benefit from these kids even more
since they are driving home the points you all are supposed to be
warning them about.