Gartner: Hacking contests bad for business

A pair of Gartner analysts Tuesday denounced a recent hack challenge that uncovered a still-unpatched QuickTime bug, calling it "a risky endeavor" and urging sponsors to reconsider such public contests.

The research manager of TippingPoint, the company that paid $10,000 for the QuickTime vulnerability and its associated exploit, rebutted by saying that at no time was there any danger of the vulnerability escaping from responsible parties.

Dino Dai Zovi was the first to hack a MacBook Pro at CanSecWest, a Vancouver security conference held two weeks ago. For his trouble, Dai Zovi took home the $10,000 prize offered by TippingPoint's Zero Day Initiative, a bug bounty program that's been in operation nearly two years.

Security researchers have called the QuickTime bug, which can be exploited through any Java-enabled browser, "very serious." Apple has yet to patch -- or announce when it will patch, the vulnerability.

"Public vulnerability research and 'hacking contests' are risky endeavors and can run contrary to responsible disclosure practices, whereby vendors are given an opportunity to develop patches or remediation before any public announcements," said analysts Rich Mogull and Greg Young in a research note published by Gartner on Monday.

"Vulnerability research is an extremely valuable endeavor for ensuring more secure IT. However, conducting vulnerability research in a public venue could potentially lead to mishandling or treating too lightly these vulnerabilities -- which can turn a well-intentioned action into a more ambiguous one or inadvertently provide assistance to attackers."

"There are a lot of definitions of 'responsible disclosure,'" retorted Terri Forslof, TippingPoint's manager of security research. "What it means to us is that the vulnerability and its exploit are kept quiet, and the vendor is given the time to patch the issue.

"It comes down to the facts of the case. The [CanSecWest] organizers took great pains to secure the network that was actually used for the challenge. As for the idea that this added some risk [that the vulnerability would be made public], I don't find it to be the case."

Mogull and Young recommended that security vendors call an end to public contests. "Consider ending public vulnerability marketing events, which may lead to unanticipated consequences that endanger IT users," they concluded.

"This wasn't our idea," Forslof said. "We didn't host this challenge, and we didn't organize it. It was an on-the-spot decision [to offer the prize]."

Dai Zovi, who dug up the QuickTime bug and crafted an exploit in a 9- to 10-hour stretch, has said the money wasn't his motivation. "The challenge, especially with the time constraint, was the real draw," he said last Friday in an interview.

"On the record, I think all vulnerabilities should be disclosed only through the vendor or through a responsible third party," said Forslof.

"But users were never at risk here."