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Unpatched enterprise security bugs proliferate

175 0-day vulns menace mankind

By John Leyden • Get more from this author

Posted in Security, 24th August 2006 10:52 GMT

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The backlog of unpatched security vulnerabilities in enterprise products is growing. NGSSoftware, the firm that first identified the underlying security flaw exploited by the infamous Slammer worm, is sitting on a backlog of 175 unresolved vulns.

The security consultancy is working with the UK's National Infrastructure Security Co-ordination Centre (NISCC) to help produce early warning notices about pending IT security problems to organisations responsible for critical services.

Information about security problems, along with mitigation advice, will be released before suppliers deliver patches as part of a collaboration between NISCC's Vulnerability Management Team (Vulteam) and NGSSoftware (NGS) researchers.

The unfixed vulnerabilities are in software products from Oracle, IBM, HP, Microsoft, Openbase, Real, Sybase, Ingres, Veritas, Computer Associates and Sun. NGS's database contains 175 vulns still waiting to be patched by vendors. "We add more on a weekly basis," Dave Litchfield of NGS told El Reg.

To help firms guard against attack, NGS is publishing good practice guides on topics such as securing web applications and a series of white papers through NISCC. Upcoming NGS white papers will cover countermeasures against BIOS rootkits and hacking smart cards.

An archive of security advisories NGS has been involved in developing can be found here. ®

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