[37938] in bugtraq

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Re: DJB's students release 44 *nix software vulnerability advisories

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Crispin Cowan)
Thu Dec 23 15:48:04 2004

Message-ID: <41CA7EF7.7010905@immunix.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 2004 00:16:55 -0800
From: Crispin Cowan <crispin@immunix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: "Steven M. Christey" <coley@mitre.org>
Cc: bugtraq@securityfocus.com
In-Reply-To: <200412212125.iBLLP2J3010891@linus.mitre.org>
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Steven M. Christey wrote:

>In addition to modeling the level of authentication needed, I've been
>thinking that it might also be important to note how much user/victim
>participation is required for activation of the exploit, i.e. whether
>the issue can be automatically exploited by normal user activity
>(e.g. by simply reading an email message) or whether there's some
>social engineering involved.  However, I haven't put much thought into
>terminology for this besides:
>
>  - automatic: exploit is automatically activated as a result of
>    normal usage of the product
>  
>
I call this class "worms", or more grammatically a class of remote 
vulnerabilities subject to worm attack. where the malware can propagate 
unassisted.

>  - complicit: requires some victim participation or inaction
>  
>
I call this class "viruses, same grammar hack as above. These require 
the victim to click on something, or such like, before the malware can 
propagate.

>  - opportunistic: can not really control when, or if, the victim
>    activates the exploit
>  
>
I'm having a hard time seeing the difference between "complicit" and 
"opportunistic".

Crispin

-- 
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.  http://immunix.com/~crispin/
CTO, Immunix          http://immunix.com


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