Is anyone really surprised that we get to ring in the New Year with a critical Microsoft vulnerability?
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Or that Microsoft has known of the Abstract Syntax Notation Version 1 (ASN.1) flaw for more than six months, yet did nothing to correct it? What was the driving factor that's gotten us into another security bind? Is it once again the "Microsoft Factor" of poor security? Or are there larger issues?
There are two significant points to be made; the most important is the Microsoft promise made in 2002 of "Trustworthy Computing." It's two years later and we're still suffering through critical threats to our systems. Microsoft knew of this threat six months ago and waited until now to announce it to the world and provide a fix. Is this Trustworthy Computing in action?
It's also necessary to examine how the basics of ASN.1 changed so that now it's an issue for Microsoft, but not for other software vendors. Many believe Microsoft is now suffering from decisions made during the initial design and creation of the Windows 2000 products. At that time Microsoft stated it would add Kerberos, LDAP and other connectivity for providing better access to non-Microsoft standards. Yet, at the time, the software giant also said it would be a Microsoft version of these products, not off the shelf as other vendors had chosen.
ASN.1 is a notation, method or formal communication structure by which applications speak to one another. This is very similar to the English language where words are placed in a certain order to convey one idea, then used in a different manner to convey another, making it flexible and scalable to many ideas yet still granular to the communication.
Microsoft chose to change the way ASN.1 was used for all application communications, thus each and every system, critical or not, is vulnerable to different vectors of attack.
This would be similar to Microsoft developing its own English language and changing the structure to NOT use adjectives, pronouns and prepositions, thus disabling the advantages they add and also degrading the language structure.
If you change the basic principals without testing or agreement from the developers, problems will always arise.
About the author
Ed Yakabovicz, CISSP, is information security manger at Bank One Corporate Internet Group.
This was first published in February 2004