Re:Disclosing vulnerabilities to protect users
by tallanvor on Tuesday November 01, 2016 @06:54AM
(#12844618)
How does Google's disclosure allow people to protect themselves, though? They say to update Flash. Great, but that doesn't explain whether or not anything can be done to prevent the specific Microsoft vulnerability from being exploited if Flash isn't involved.
So if Google doesn't have any way to mitigate the vulnerability, all putting these details out do is allow more actors the chance to use the vulnerability until Microsoft can release a patch, which is exactly the opposite of responsible.
It goes both ways. As they said, this is active in the wild and many are being hacked AS WE SPEAK completely unaware of it. Imagine you had some information that is worth millions of dollars on your computer who is vulnerable to this. Now that you know, the first thing you'll do it turn off your computer or find a way to protect yourself. If they hadn't released it, you could've been hit in the coming week or month or however long it takes Microsoft.
As you can see, this isn't a black and white problem.