Why is it that security guys always think their issues are more important than any other issues?
Like well done you, you ran an automated tool over the codebase and it picked up some outdated dependencies.
We cant just update these dependencies because the newer versions have breaking changes and we already have a backlog of 32767 issues to deal with.
It’s not security debt, it’s just general technical debt.
Why is the issue that is only exploitable in a contorted scenario where the user has broken out of a VM and gained root on the hypervisor more important than the issue preventing our largest customer from tripling their volume on our platform?
Not to mention the joke that’s been made of the CVE system due to resume padding by the security industry…
Generally a regular issue is much less likely to get you hacked.
Security issues often come with legal liability which is why a bad security department will act overly important and stomp around demanding changes be made right the fuck now.
But I do get it, a good security team should be enabling their dev teams to solve issues in the least disruptive way possible, not just thrown them work and barking orders.
In some places I have worked, the sec teans will find an issue and push PRs to fix them, explaining the security concern, and requesting only a review and merge.
It’s not security debt, it’s just general technical debt.
I would also say, that this is just technical debt. I also fully understand, that there are things like breaking changes. I remember clearly when we used asyncore in the past for Python at work and then it became deprecated. It was still possible to use it for a long time, but a change was needed. Such breaking changes caused work and are not nice. Especially if it is a big software.
On the other side, I am not happy if I buy software or hardware, which has probably insecure dependencies.
I understand the developers, I am also one, and I know that many things are not under their control. I am also not blaming them. But it is a no-go if something new is sold with 10-year-old OpenSSH Server, 15-year-old curl or other things.
But I am not taking exotic vulnerabilities that seriously. Like, if you need specific constellations, so this is somehow hackable.
Why is it that security guys always think their issues are more important than any other issues?
Like well done you, you ran an automated tool over the codebase and it picked up some outdated dependencies.
We cant just update these dependencies because the newer versions have breaking changes and we already have a backlog of 32767 issues to deal with.
It’s not security debt, it’s just general technical debt.
Why is the issue that is only exploitable in a contorted scenario where the user has broken out of a VM and gained root on the hypervisor more important than the issue preventing our largest customer from tripling their volume on our platform?
Not to mention the joke that’s been made of the CVE system due to resume padding by the security industry…
Generally a regular issue is much less likely to get you hacked.
Security issues often come with legal liability which is why a bad security department will act overly important and stomp around demanding changes be made right the fuck now.
But I do get it, a good security team should be enabling their dev teams to solve issues in the least disruptive way possible, not just thrown them work and barking orders.
In some places I have worked, the sec teans will find an issue and push PRs to fix them, explaining the security concern, and requesting only a review and merge.
I would also say, that this is just technical debt. I also fully understand, that there are things like breaking changes. I remember clearly when we used asyncore in the past for Python at work and then it became deprecated. It was still possible to use it for a long time, but a change was needed. Such breaking changes caused work and are not nice. Especially if it is a big software.
On the other side, I am not happy if I buy software or hardware, which has probably insecure dependencies. I understand the developers, I am also one, and I know that many things are not under their control. I am also not blaming them. But it is a no-go if something new is sold with 10-year-old OpenSSH Server, 15-year-old curl or other things.
But I am not taking exotic vulnerabilities that seriously. Like, if you need specific constellations, so this is somehow hackable.