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    Home Cybersecurity
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    Report: MS, Apple, Oracle Are Top Vulnerable Vendors

    By
    Lisa Vaas
    -
    September 17, 2007
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      Not surprising: In the first half of 2007, Microsoft was the top vendor when it came to publicly disclosed vulnerabilities. Likely surprising to some: Apple got second place.

      IBM Internet Security Systems X-Force R&D team released its 2007 report on cyber attacks on Sept. 17, revealing that the top five vulnerable vendors accounted for 12.6 of all disclosed vulnerabilities in the first half of the year—or 411 of 3,272 vulnerabilities disclosed.

      Heres the order in which the top 10 vendors stacked up, by percentage of vulnerabilities publicly disclosed in the first half of the year:

      Microsoft, 4.2 percent
      Apple, 3 percent
      Oracle, 2 percent
      Cisco Systems, 1.9 percent
      Sun Microsystems, 1.5 percent
      IBM, 1.3 percent
      Mozilla, 1.3 percent
      XOOPS, 1.2 percent
      BEA, 1.1 percent
      Linux kernel, 0.9 percent

      The report also says that 21 percent of vulnerabilities disclosed by the top 5 vendors remain unpatched—up from a year ago, when only 14 percent of the top vendors vulnerabilities stayed open in the same timeframe.

      While that might seem alarming, its notable that 60 percent of vulnerabilities from all other vendors found in the first half of the year remained unaddressed.

      To read about the breach of the U.S. Consulate Web site in Russia, click here.

      The vast majority—90 percent—of the 3,273 vulnerabilities reported in the first half of the year can be exploited remotely. And more than half—51.6 percent—of the vulnerabilities found would give an attacker access to the host after exploitation.

      In other findings, one surprise was that for the first time ever, theres been an actual decrease in the number of vulnerabilities reported. The total of 3,273 vulnerabilities found represents a 3.3 percent decrease over the first half of 2006.

      X-Force Director Kris Lamb told eWEEK that there are a few things at play that likely have contributed to the decrease. One factor is that nowadays researchers have at their disposal much more polished bug-finding techniques. One such technique is fuzzing: the use of automatic tools to find vulnerabilities.

      As such tools become more mainstream, Lamb said, we are likely hitting the saturation point as far as finding the low-hanging fruit goes.

      “[The functionality of] tools are still being expanded, but they were used in early years to find easier-to-find, medium- and high-[risk] vulnerabilities,” he said. “It doesnt mean there arent more bugs to be found, but the bugs out there are harder to find, and they take a more specialized skill set to find.”

      The decrease in reported vulnerabilities could also be a reflection of the trend to monetize exploits in the underground marketplace—and in the above-ground marketplace as well. The disclosure of bugs could be taking longer since theyre being sold or traded, he suggested, on sites such as Wabisabilabi, an eBay-like bug market launched in July.

      “Theres the potential for vulnerabilities to not see the light of day either as quickly as they used to or [at all], as a result,” Lamb said.

      Where spam and phishing is concerned, X-Force found that the top spam spewers worldwide are the United States, Poland and Russia. Analysis of IBM ISS content filtering services and the millions of e-mail addresses it actively monitors shows that the United States accounts for originating one-eighth of all worldwide spam. Heres how the rest of the world breaks down, spam sender-wise:

      United States, 13.2 percent
      Poland, 7.1 percent
      Russia, 5.9 percent
      Germany, 5.9 percent
      South Korea, 5.7 percent
      China, 5.4 percent
      Brazil, 4.5 percent
      Italy, 4.0 percent
      France, 3.8 percent
      Turkey, 3.0 percent

      But the map of where spam URLs are hosted looks very different. The United States is still tops in this category—its home to 34.7 percent of the points from which spam URLs are hosted—but the rest of the world breaks down differently, with China moving to its usual position at or near the top of such maps:

      United States, 34.7 percent
      China, 12.7 percent
      South Korea, 5.9 percent
      France, 5.3 percent
      Hong Kong, 3.6 percent
      Canada, 2.9 percent
      United Kingdom, 2.6 percent
      Russia, 2.6 percent
      Hungary, 2.2 percent
      Netherlands, 2 percent

      The X-Force is also seeing a first-time dip in byte size for spam. This is a trend that reflects the decrease in image-based spam, as senders hop around in an effort to avoid content filters by instead sending spam messages embedded in PDFs, Excel or other file formats, Lamb said.

      “Thats very effective, initially, at bypassing a lot of traditional filtering technology,” Lamb said.

      Check out eWEEK.coms Security Center for the latest security news, reviews and analysis. And for insights on security coverage around the Web, take a look at eWEEKs Security Watch blog.

      Avatar
      Lisa Vaas
      Lisa Vaas is News Editor/Operations for eWEEK.com and also serves as editor of the Database topic center. Since 1995, she has also been a Webcast news show anchorperson and a reporter covering the IT industry. She has focused on customer relationship management technology, IT salaries and careers, effects of the H1-B visa on the technology workforce, wireless technology, security, and, most recently, databases and the technologies that touch upon them. Her articles have appeared in eWEEK's print edition, on eWEEK.com, and in the startup IT magazine PC Connection. Prior to becoming a journalist, Vaas experienced an array of eye-opening careers, including driving a cab in Boston, photographing cranky babies in shopping malls, selling cameras, typography and computer training. She stopped a hair short of finishing an M.A. in English at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. She earned a B.S. in Communications from Emerson College. She runs two open-mic reading series in Boston and currently keeps bees in her home in Mashpee, Mass.

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