Late August security incidents
Technology, Work August 18th, 2005
There’s definately a correlation between computer security incidents and late August. Sasser, then Sobig. This week I’ve probably gotten 6 emails from CITES security on all sorts of new exploits and patches (or workarounds) from Microsoft, or Adobe, or Apple. What is it about the return of hundreds of thousands of students to colleges where their unpatched-from-the-summer-computers get turned back on to high speed, well-connected networks that makes netadmins and security analysts so nervous?
Oh, yeah. Exactly that. But even so, why so much publicity around late August. Some of these vulnerability have been around for months. Do hackers go overdrive in the summer, causing more ‘ploits in August? Do they think about college students coming back? Or do developers work all summer on their bugfixes and roll out the patch packages in mid-August, when they hope more people will install them?
Or am I just naturally busier in August? Security incidents/reports/notices pull me away from my other projects, and I notice them more?
About
