Last week Microsoft issued an advisory on a new vulnerability with the IIS FTP service. This vulnerability already has a published exploit and can result in allowing the attacker to execute unauthorized code on the target. Details of the vulnerability are available at the US-CERT website. If you have an anonymous account on your ftp server then you are especially at risk because no theft of credentials would be needed to execute this exploit.
To me the key to this issue is that a fix won’t be included in today’s Microsoft security patch release. There simply wasn’t enough time to identify, code and test the patch before it was released. Microsoft complained that the security researcher didn’t report the vulnerability responsibly. While this may be true, it certainly highlights the weakness of a desktop security plan that relies on patching and antivirus signatures.
Time is the issue. Last week John Pescatore of Gartner Group wrote we need to start over on desktop security and he’s right. The pace of security exploitation is simply too fast to expect operational procedures to fix things. It is time for a serious discussion about a complete shift in the way we protect our critical endpoints.
- We need a system that can protect against threats rather than react to them.
- We need a system that doesn’t significantly degrade the performance of our significant IT investments.
- We need a system that allows our users to deal with advancing technology and doesn’t disrupt the end user experience.
Application whitelisting can meet these needs. It’s time to begin discussing how the transition will take place.