Firewall Wizards: Re: The Morris worm to Nimda, how little we've learned or gained

[Michael Brennen <mbrennen () fni com>]

On Mon, 14 Jan 2002, R. DuFresne wrote:

> On Sun, 13 Jan 2002, Michael Brennen wrote:
>
> > This is where IMO the 9-11 analogy breaks down.  The shock of 9-11
> > is personal vulnerability where none was perceived before.  It is
> > because of that new awareness of immediate personal vulnerability
> > that people are willing to accept and even welcome security measures
> > now that they would not have tolerated before.
> I disagree, 9/11/01 was not a personal issue at all, but an
> issue of national scope, in my mind, perhaps it's my personal
> perspecitive, we can disagree on this.  But I see personal
> security more in line with my home, car, family and well, my
> body spirit and mind.
I agree that the scope of 9-11 is national; I see a difference in
scope and threat level.  What we learned on 9-11 is that common
things integrally involved in everyday life, boxcutters, buildings,
airplanes and postal mail, can be turned against us with surprising
ease and with deadly results.  While understanding that there is a
real national threat and that that does have a component in people's
caution, I think most understand the primary threat to be personal,
that of their own lives ("body spirit and mind" as you note.)  That
is why people are willing to accept much greater personal government
surveillance, airport security, etc.

The software tools that people use every day (Outlook and IE figure
prominently, though far from exclusively) can be turned against them
to totally destroy their own networks and data.  The scope of such a
threat is global.  The primary threat level is immediate and
personal against one's networks and data; if this happens on a
widespread scale, it could have significant social impact.

That e-mail attachment propagation still works so well indicates
that people and companies have not yet understood the direct risk
that they face using common software on their computer.  I hope that
it does not take a high profile company's network being totally
destroyed to get that point through.

> Marcus might decide this is something to off topci now and let
> this float between us, and that is fine with me should he so
> wish here...
Agreed.  This thread is probably exhausted.

   -- Michael

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