On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 5:24 AM, Bruno Wolff III <br...@wolff.to> wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 07, 2012 at 05:09:42 +0100,
>  Reindl Harald <h.rei...@thelounge.net> wrote:
>>
>> however - why do we spit the current running versions to everyone?
>
> It can help when trouble shooting problems. The current version isn't
> really that helpful to attackers anyway. It's about as easy to just to try
> an exploit as it is to first test to see if the exploit might work and
> then try it.

Actually, knowing the exact build/version can help select the right
exploit/payload so that the exploit succeeds on the first try (and
leaves no or very little evidence behind) instead of trying 10
different variangs and causing a large log/IDS signature.  Hence, the
less specific the version information is, the better.

(Address randomization is often a larger obstacle than an unknown
build/version number, but address randomization only affects a certain
class of vulnerabilities.)

In the particular case of SSH, we are really dealing with a "protocol
identifier", not a "version number" and it needs to be treated as such
- ideally by the auditors as well.
   Mirek
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