oss-security - Re: wiki: vendor info & osvdb.org/vendors

Openwall GNU/*/Linux - a small security-enhanced Linux distro for servers

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Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2008 17:52:39 +0000 (UTC)
From: security curmudgeon <jericho@...rition.org>
To: oss-security@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: wiki: vendor info & osvdb.org/vendors

: I am not so sure.  On our wiki, we have a separation between distro 
: vendors and individual Open Source projects - and I like it.  I haven't 
: found a way to extract a list of distro vendors only from osvdb.org.

Based on what I have seen from this list, that is a very important 
distinction and something the Wiki may be better suited for. OSVDB aims to 
focus more on 'where the vulnerability is' over 'who distributes' it. The 
more I work on VDBs, the more I realize that it becomes a mess trying to 
track some open-source packages and what products/packages use them.

: Also, some vendors and projects may have relevant info that just does 
: not fit into pre-defined fields on osvdb.org - yet it may be specified 
: in entries on the wiki.

OSVDB has a 'notes' field for each vendor to accomodate this.

We actually have tickets open to expand the vendor database to include a 
rating system for vendor response, tickets open to track more dates 
related to the disclosure of a vulnerability (and then automatically 
generate time based statistics for vendors), and more. I know our system 
isn't perfect by any means, but we'd love to expand and build our vendor 
database as much as possible.

: It is a good idea to update the info at osvdb.org with whatever we have. 
: For example, I was not able to find rPath in the osvdb.org database. 
: Then the vendors/projects themselves would need to remember to keep 
: those entries up to date as well...

Right, good chance we don't have rPath and a few other linux distros. 
However, you or anyone else can add them in one way or another. If you 
find a vulnerability that affects rPath, you can add them to the product 
list on the given entry, which populates the vendor database.

Please check out the Open Source Software Security Wiki, which is counterpart to this mailing list.