[Info-vax] DCL vulnerability write up on The Register

[Simon Clubley]

On 2018-02-18, Phillip Helbig (undress to reply) <helbig at asclothestro.multivax.de> wrote:
>
> The headline describes VMS as "the operating system world's elderly 
> statesman".  First, "elder", not "elderly".  Second, hyphenate 
> "operating-system" since it is a compound adjective here.  The writer 
> can't even master the basic elements of English style.  What do you 
> expect?
>

Knock it off Phillip. Shooting the messenger in this way just makes you
appear to be someone in denial.

VMS is not the world's most secure operating system. VMS in fact has a
number of security deficiencies by the standards of today and which are
only now starting to be addressed by VSI. Just off the top of my head:

1) A shell which should be non-privileged but can be used to totally
compromise the system.

2) Pathetic password hash.

3) A process space which is shared by the shell and a combination of
privileged and non-privileged programs. This gives various attack
possibilites which do not exist on Unix. When combined with data
structures which are executable, this makes it easier to exploit any
vulnerabilities found in programs and the shell.

4) Totally out of date TCP/IP stack.

5) Unencrypted cluster traffic.

6) The VMS compilers do not currently support any stack smashing protection.

In addition, VMS has not been subjected to the level of probing that
other operating systems have. If it had been, what I found would have
been found ages ago. If I can find these things, then it makes you
wonder what the people who do this for a living will find if they
start probing VMS.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
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