Internet - Ethics of Publicizing Security Vulnerabilities :: Free Essays Online

The Ethics of Publicizing Security Vulnerabilities Abstract In 1988, Robert T. Morris Jr. released the meshing Worm Virus, which essentially close down down the total internet for a day. Morris wrote the computer virus using known vulnerabilities in the UNIX operating(a) system. When these vulnerabilities are discovered, should they be publicized or kept secret to obstruct further attacks? These issues relate closely to the concepts of open source versus proprietary software program development. In 1988, Robert T. Morris Jr., a Cornell graduate student, released a data processor virus. The goal of this virus was to propagate itself crossways the Internet and to infect as many a(prenominal) machines as possible in as little time as possible. The Internet Worm, as it came to be known, was very successful it infected millions upon millions of machines and essentially shut down the entire Internet for roughly twenty four hours. As a result of his creation and release of the Internet Worm, Robert Morris spent eld in judicatorys and paid significant dos of m whizzy in lawyer and court fees, but never went to prison for his actions. The Internet Worm case brings up an extremely important issue that increases in importance each form as the world becomes increasingly networked via the internet and through other representation should people have access to information about vulnerabilities in computer systems, or should these vulnerabilities remain secret? At the time that Robert Morris wrote the Internet Worm, at that place were known vulnerabilities in the UNIX Operating Systems Finger command, and in the Sendmail Daemon, the program answerable for transmitting electronic mail from one machine to another. Anyone who had some amount of expertise in the UNIX Operating System knew of these weaknesses, yet no one had made an attempt to fix the problem. Robert Morris apparently viewed this situation as a matter that needed attention, which many people speculate as his reasonableness for creating the Internet Worm. His ingenious virus used these vulnerabilities to attack systems and to propagate itself across the internet. One fact is definitely known. This is the fact that the Internet Worm gave many thousands of computer experts a strong reason to fix these vulnerabilities. It is necessary to crystallize one important fact about the internet worm virus it was not totally malicious. That is, Morris did not write the virus so that it would listen to do any damage to the hardware or software of the machines it infected.