[Info-vax] (Hypothetical only) Major new security issue for VAX/Alpha. What do you do ?

[Simon Clubley]

On 2016-09-24, Kerry Main <kemain.nospam at gmail.com> wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Info-vax [mailto:info-vax-bounces at rbnsn.com] On Behalf
>> Of Simon Clubley via Info-vax
>> Sent: 24-Sep-16 2:45 PM
>> To: info-vax at rbnsn.com
>> Cc: Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-
>> Earth.UFP>
>> Subject: [Info-vax] (Hypothetical only) Major new security
> issue
>> for VAX/Alpha. What do you do ?
>> 
>> Questions:
>> 
>> What would you do to tackle the problem that your old system,
>> which is long off software support, now has a major new
>> potential security hole in it ?
>> 
>> HP can't give you a patch for VAX and as I understand it, they
>> won't be able to give you one for Alpha from the end of this
> year.
>> [*]
>> 
>
> [snip..]
>
> Never say never .. there is a difference between "won't" and
> "can't". The EOL dates are arbitrary to force Cust's to plan to
> move to a supported version by a designated date. It does not
> mean source code could not be pulled out of HPE backups if it was
> required. 
>

Next questions:

Do HP currently evaluate IA64 and Alpha VMS security issues to
see if they apply to VAX/VMS as well ?

After the end of this year, will IA64 issues be evaluated to
see if they also apply to Alpha as well ?

At the moment, if a security researcher tells HP that a VMS issue
also applies to VAX/VMS, is the security researcher simply told
that VAX/VMS is no longer supported (in regards to new patches
being generated), or would the issue be evaluated to see what
impact it has on VAX systems ?

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world