Level3 worldwide emergency upgrade?

Thu Feb 7 01:01:38 UTC 2013

On 2/6/13 4:41 PM, Brandt, Ralph wrote:
> David. I am on an evening shift and am just now reading this thread.
>
> I was almost tempted to write an explanation that would have had
> identical content with yours based simply on Level3 doing something and
> keeping the information close.
>
> Responsible Vendors do not try to hide what is being done unless it is
> an Op Sec issue and I have never seen Level3 act with less than
> responsibility so it had to be Op Sec.
>
> When it is that, it is best if the remainder of us sit quietly on the
> sidelines.
To be clear. the existence of the PR has been know publicly and the 
software releases that address it  have been available for a week now.

Everyone who has potential exposure should be addressing the issue, and 
soon.
> Ralph Brandt
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Siegel, David [mailto:David.Siegel at Level3.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2013 12:01 PM
> To: 'Ray Wong'; nanog at nanog.org
> Subject: RE: Level3 worldwide emergency upgrade?
>
> Hi Ray,
>
> This topic reminds me of yesterday's discussion in the conference around
> getting some BCOP's drafted.  it would be useful to confirm my own view
> of the BCOP around communicating security issues.  My understanding for
> the best practice is to limit knowledge distribution of security related
> problems both before and after the patches are deployed.  You limit
> knowledge before the patch is deployed to prevent yourself from being
> exploited, but you also limit knowledge afterwards in order to limit
> potential damage to others (customers, competitors...the Internet at
> large).  You also do not want to announce that you will be deploying a
> security patch until you have a fix in hand and know when you will
> deploy it (typically, next available maintenance window unless the cat
> is out of the bag and danger is real and imminent).
>
> As a service provider, you should stay on top of security alerts from
> your vendors so that you can make your own decision about what action is
> required.  I would not recommend relying on service provider maintenance
> bulletins or public operations mailing lists for obtaining this type of
> information.  There is some information that can cause more harm than
> good if it is distributed in the wrong way and information relating to
> security vulnerabilities definitely falls into that category.
>
> Dave
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ray Wong [mailto:rayw at rayw.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2013 9:16 AM
> To: nanog at nanog.org
> Subject: Re: Level3 worldwide emergency upgrade?
>
> OK, having had that first cup of coffee, I can say perhaps the main
> reason I was wondering is I've gotten used to Level3 always being on top
> of things (and admittedly, rarely communicating). They've reached the
> top by often being a black box of reliability, so it's (perhaps
> unrealistically) surprising to see them caught by surprise. Anything
> that pushes them into scramble mode causes me to lose a little sleep
> anyway. The alternative to what they did seems likely for at least a few
> providers who'll NOT manage to fix things in time, so I may well be
> looking at longer outages from other providers, and need to issue
> guidance to others on what to do if/when other links go down for periods
> long enough that all the cost-bounding monitoring alarms start to scream
> even louder.
>
> I was also grumpy at myself for having not noticed advance
> communication, which I still don't seem to have, though since I
> outsourced my email to bigG, I've noticed I'm more likely to miss
> things. Perhaps giving up maintaining that massive set of procmail rules
> has cost me a bit more edge.
>
> Related, of course, just because you design/run your network to tolerate
> some issues doesn't mean you can also budget to be in support contract
> as well. :) Knowing more about the exploit/fix might mean trying to find
> a way to get free upgrades to some kit to prevent more localized attacks
> to other types of gear, as well, though in this case it's all about
> Juniper PR839412 then, so vendor specific, it seems?
>
> There are probably more reasons to wish for more info, too. There's
> still more of them (exploiters/attackers) than there are those of us
> trying to keep things running smoothly and transparently, so anything
> that smells of "OMG new exploit found!" also triggers my desire to share
> information. The network bad guys share information far more quickly and
> effectively than we do, it often seems.
>
> -R>
>
>
>
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