On Sat, Jan 25, 2003 at 01:53:10PM -1000, Jason Coombs wrote:
> Colm MacCarthaigh wrote:
> > If the worm had a malicious (in your terms) payload, it would have
> > caused networks just as many problems (so no gain there), and more harm
> > to MS-SQL users. Using your logic, surely this much more damaging
> > experience would have cause MS-SQL admins to be more responsible in
> > keeping up to date ? Or rather, more fearful of future exploits.
>
> Precisely my point. Sapphire was not designed to inspire fear. If this had
> been a terrorist act it would have done so, and it could have done so.

Consider that in order to exploit a target, it is counter-productive to
inspire fear within this target.

I do agree that this exploit was likely neither a Terrorist act nor primarily
designed to inpire fear. Far more likely it was designed to make headlines,
and a name for someone.

> anything actually *damaged* by Sapphire (in a physical/non-trivial sense of
> the word) was too vulnerable for use in the first place.

Unfortunatley the "anything" is the Internet, and "vulnerability" is
the CPU-bound nature of routers and the finite capacity of network links.

--
colmmacc at redbrick.dcu.ie

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