1000 Hackers in a Box: Failings of "Security Scanners"

Presented at Black Hat USA 1999, July 8, 1999, 4 p.m. (60 minutes)

Last year saw the boom of commercial "security scanners", the very same technology that Dan Farmer was fired for writing over 5 years ago. If you believe the propaganda, these scanners will seem to take you to "security nirvana". However, scanners not only fail to enforce security policy, they encourage bad policy. The applications themselves are full of shortcomings, from false positives to blatant oversights. The market is driven by coverage, resulting in inaccurate tests based on flawed assumptions. If you scan and repair your network with such a scanner, you are no more secure than when you started.


Presenters:

  • Greg Hoglund - Author of the Asmodeus Security Scanner (Now the Webtrends Security Analyzer).
    Greg Hoglund is a software engineer and researcher. His most notable achievement was the creation of the Asmodeus Security Scanner, a Windows NT based port scanner and ethernet sniffer, which he later sold to Webtrends, Corp. Additionally, Hoglund has written several white papers on content based attacks, kernel patching, and forensics. He currently works as a researcher for Tripwire Security Systems, exploring forensics issues.

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