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the Morris worm at 30 years old

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https://www.bcs.org/content-hub/the-morris-worm-at-30/

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While it’s tempting to look back at the Morris Worm as merely a
historical example, history is of little use if we don’t learn from it.
The era of the Morris Worm seems ancient history for the internet. The
technology was relatively new, security wasn’t prioritised as it should
have been, and the users generally had other priorities. Sadly, those
things haven’t changed very much.

Each new generation of technology still seems to surprise us, as we
have seen with mobile devices and SCADA, and are increasingly seeing
with the internet of things. Moreover, it’s not as if we have things
nailed down in traditional IT devices either. It doesn’t say much for
security attitudes and practices when we realise that the same sort of
techniques that were used to exploit systems three decades ago would
still have a fair chance of working today.

So, with all this evidence, why do we keep sleeping through the wake-up
calls? In part, it is down to inertia. We have huge sunk costs in
hardware/software, as well as in data, schemas, user training, and
interoperability, all of which make it harder to make significant,
needed changes as well as leading to more homogenous targets.

Moreover, technologists have failed to understand economics, and legal
and policy issues. Relying on ‘penetrate and patch’ for (the illusion
of) security is not sufficient - especially in regulated or constrained
environments.

Equally, disclaiming use of the software in safety-critical
environments does not prevent its use or enhance its security.
Additional complexity breeds more problems, and, to date, the focus on
innovation has been to build additional layers (e.g., virtualisation,
containers) instead of addressing fundamental issues.
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-- 
RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com>

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the Morris worm at 30 years old RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2019-03-11 14:29 -0400

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