Penetration Testing: Re: Pentester convicted..

["Art Cooper" <acooper () pop innerwall com>]

I agree Bill.  The fact they use information HE provided to then convict him 
is completely ridiculous..

On Wed, 10 May 2006 09:20:22 -0500, William Hancock wrote
> Hey there pen-testers, take this with a grain of salt, it just got me
> excited.  I am really interested in everyones opinion on the matter 
> or corporate responsibility and ownership.
>
> <RANT>
> In an article posted to slashdot today
>
> (http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/10/112259&from=rss) a 
> man has been convicted of hacking when he casually and helpfully 
> reported a security vulnerability to the owners of a web site, in 
> this case The University of Southern California.  It reads like it 
> was some sort of simple SQL injection and upon gleaning the 
> information he reported it.
>
> What are we to do as a community I ask?  We should we, the good guys,
> who are paid for our knowledge and ability to exploit mistakes,
> oversights, and weaknesses then professionally report them to aid in 
> the securing of information capital (or anyone who reports the flaw 
> for that matter) worry about prosecution.  It lends itself to a 
> forcing the technical community to sit on their laurels and wait for 
> the people who don't report issues to exploit them.  Further it 
> sounds very clear that had he not notified them, they would have 
> never known.
>
> A security pro notices a flaw, checks to make sure he is not on 
> crack by 'flipping a bit', deems the threat viable and is likely to 
> be exploited, notifies the owners, then get arrested and charged 
> with unauthorized access.  We, as a or even The security community,
>  should push corporations, governments, and organized body's to take 
> responsibility and ownership of their problems.  If they publish a 
> site that is flawed or exposing information then they are 
> authorizing the retrieval of that information.  I'm not advocating 
> that they laws should allow any jerk to try and brute his or her way 
> in to a public or private web site, but come on.
>
> If someone leaves their wallet in the park with no guard or 
> protection, I pick it up and bring it back to the owner, the owner 
> didn't want me to have it but I brought it back to him.  Why in the 
> hell should I have to go to jail for returning it to him, why should 
> I/we be punished for doing the right thing?
>
> I acknowledge this to be a rant but there must but some way to insist
> that when people make something available to the public that it is their
> responsibility to safeguard it and appreciate not persecute someone who
> let's them know (for free I might add) that a weakness exists.  This 
> is simple scapegoating, the University did something not advisable 
> as a good practice and instead of owning up to it they villafied a 
> professional pen-tester for offering valid advice.
>
> </RANT>
>
> Thanks,
> Bill
>
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This List Sponsored by: Cenzic

Concerned about Web Application Security? 
Why not go with the #1 solution - Cenzic, the only one to win the Analyst's 
Choice Award from eWeek. As attacks through web applications continue to rise, 
you need to proactively protect your applications from hackers. Cenzic has the 
most comprehensive solutions to meet your application security penetration 
testing and vulnerability management needs. You have an option to go with a 
managed service (Cenzic ClickToSecure) or an enterprise software 
(Cenzic Hailstorm). Download FREE whitepaper on how a managed service can 
help you: http://www.cenzic.com/news_events/wpappsec.php 
And, now for a limited time we can do a FREE audit for you to confirm your 
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