Bonum Certa Men Certa

VENOM€® is Not a Serious Bug, It's Just a Marketing Campaign From CrowdStrike

Bugs
Image courtesy of Red Hat, demonstrating lack of correlation between severity and logos/brands



Summary: Many journalists bamboozled into becoming couriers of CrowdStrike, an insecurity firm which tries to market itself using a name and logo for a very old bug

THERE is a disproportionate level of coverage not of Free software but of bugs in Free software. We last wrote about it only days ago



A firm called CrowdStrike (who? Exactly!) is trying to emulate the 'success' of previous FUD campaigns. Now is the time to check who's a real journalist (fact-checking) and who's just serving PR campaigns like "VENOM", a shameless FUD campaign from CrowdStrike.

The whole "VENOM" nonsense was covered in a good article titled "VENOM hype and pre-planned marketing campaign panned by experts". To quote: "On Wednesday, CrowdStrike released details on CVE-2015-3456, also known as Venom. Venom is a vulnerability in the floppy drive emulation code used by many virtualization platforms.

"However, while it’s possible that a large number of systems are impacted by this flaw, it isn’t something that can be passively exploited.

"Several security experts discussed the flaw online, focusing on the marketing and the media attention that it generated – including some over-hyped headlines. Most media organizations were briefed ahead of time about the discovery and gagged by embargo until the Venom website launched, so they had plenty of time to write.

"Many media articles compared Venom to Heartbleed, which is an apples to oranges comparison. If anything, the only commonality is the fact that both flaws had a pre-planned marketing campaign."

Here comes the "Heartbleed" brand. Yet again. They're using names that are scary (even all caps, like "GHOST") because it's so much easier to sell than "CVE-2015-3456". Journalists rarely have the technical knowledge to analyse a bug or a flaw, so they assume bugs and logos are indicative of severity.

This patch Tuesday Microsoft revealed 40+ vulnerabilities. Not a single one had a brand name, logo, etc. Here is how IDG covered 46 flaws publicly disclosed by Microsoft just for this Tuesday (Microsoft hides even more flaws). So many flaws were collectively covered in one article and yet there are no logos; none has any branding.

"VENOM" has become the latest example of what we call bugs with branding. This has got to stop because it corrupts journalism and makes the field of computer security almost synonymous with marketing or advertising. CrowdStrike used ALL CAPS (for emphasis rather than acronym) and connotation with poison to market itself, an insecurity firm, after finding a floppy drive bug from over a decade ago. There is a logo too (the first example we found of it), not just branding for this bug, dubbed "VENOM".

Bug branding (turning number into branding-friendly FUD) seems to have adopted the ALL CAPS convention from "GHOST", only for extra scare. This FUD has surfaced even in Linux-centric sites, which played along with the marketing campaign. Red Hat [1] and SJVN [2], even Phoronix [3] and Softpedia [4], have covered it by now, despite no focus on security news there.

Branding for bugs leads to stupid headlines that are more poetic than factual and are very light on facts. There is little substance there. This whole recipe (bug+brand name+logo=lots of publicity without much merit) has been repeatedly exploited to give a bad name to FOSS security. A lot of headlines try to connect this to the "Heartbleed" brand. Headlines that we have found so far (links below) include "New Venom bug hits data centers, but it's hardly Heartbleed", "Venom bug could allow hackers to take over cloud servers - and experts say it could be worse than Heartbleed", "New Venom flaw may be worse than Heartbleed, researchers warn", and "Venom vulnerability more dangerous than Heartbleed, targets most virtual machines".

Zack Whittaker (former Microsoft staff) covered it like this in the CBS-owned tech tabloid, ZDNet: "Bigger than Heartbleed, 'Venom' security vulnerability threatens most datacenters"

Here is that "Heartbleed" brand again. "Please Stop Comparing Every Security Flaw to Heartbleed," said one good headline from Gizmodo (that's just how they covered this marketing campaign).

The word/brand "Heartbleed" was made up by a Microsoft-connected firm. Watch coverage from Microsoft-friendly sites and you will find headlines like: "Heartbleed, eat your heart out: VENOM vuln poisons countless VMs"

Dan Goodin, a foe of FOSS (from a security angle), brings in the NSA and Bitcoin to add FUD amid this branded bug/buzz. He wrote about the latest branded bug not once but twice (see links below). He is squeezing the most FOSS FUD out of it (opportunism). Kim Komando chose the headline "New bug taking over the Internet". No sensationalism here? One press release said "Better Business Bureau Says Most Don't Need to Worry" [about the branded bug], so there is some objectivity out there too, or an effort to calm people down.

Watch carefully how the bug is marketed in the media: Logo with SVG-like transparency; for a bug! Looks like it was prepared by graphics/marketing professionals. Are insecurity firms now liaising with marketing firms to professionally draw SVG logos for bugs? More logos for simple bugs (we found several, but one main logo) are circulating, usually with photos of snakes. See the complete list [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36] as of this morning. How much more of this FUD is going to circulate before journalists realise that they make a mountain out of a molehill?

Related/contextual items from the news:


  1. VENOM, don’t get bitten.
    CVE-2015-3456 (aka VENOM) is a security flaw in the QEMU’s Floppy Disk Controller (FDC) emulation. It can be exploited by a malicious guest user with access to the FDC I/O ports by issuing specially crafted FDC commands to the controller. It can result in guest controlled execution of arbitrary code in, and with privileges of, the corresponding QEMU process on the host. Worst case scenario this can be guest to host exit with the root privileges.


  2. For Venom security flaw, the fix is in: Patch your VM today
    The QEMU fix itself is now available in source code. Red Hat has been working on the fix since last week.


  3. VENOM Bug In QEMU Escapes VM Security


  4. 11-Year-Old Bug in Virtual Floppy Drive Code Allows Escape from Virtual Machines
    Popular virtualization platforms relying on the virtual Floppy Disk Controller code from QEMU (Quick Emulator) are susceptible to a vulnerability that allows executing code outside the guest machine.




Recent Techrights' Posts

"Many Applications Labelled as "Cybersecurity" and Given a Veneer of Legitimacy Are Really "Weaponised" and Abusive Code"
New from Dr. Andy Farnell
Security Advisory: Debian falls for social engineering hacks
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The High Cost of Making Scepticism of Proprietary Voting Machines a "Trump" and "Conspiracy Theory" Territory
Time to get back to paper? Or read an old paper?
 
Donald Trump as Censor in Chief Can Now Leverage Censorship Companies and Fake Protection Disguised as 'Security'
Centralised CAs were trouble all along
Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part VI
By Dr. Andy Farnell
A Death of a News Industry
A theme we explored thrice today
Deciphering Centralised CAs and Why Their Demise Should be a Goal
Encryption in transmission is good; but who controls the key exchange and certification/authentication/validation?
Links 08/11/2024: Strikes, Recessions, and Slowdowns
Links for the day
[Teaster] [Meme] New Ways of Wrecking (NWoW)
The EPO
Gateway for News and Blogs
In the long run, this site and its sister site (less overlap between them now) should hopefully become a popular destination for people who look for information, not chaff
Going Even Faster
We hope the site will be faster soon
Psychopaths Who Reaffirm Our Work's Value
Psychopaths and sociopaths lack empathy, so they're willing to go very far and stoop as low as they deem necessary
[Meme] How Low Can You Go at the European Patent Office?
Not just in terms of patent quality
More Cuts/End to Benefits for EPO Workers (Europe's Working Conditions Incompatible With the European Patent Convention)
"The Office is now reviving it but plans to introduce new cuts on benefits"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 07, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, November 07, 2024
Gemini Links 08/11/2024: US Election, RetroChallenge 2024, and More
Links for the day
[Meme] Questioning Proprietary Software? Not OK...
A disaster long in the making
Links 07/11/2024: HTTP/3, Health Research, and Punditry
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/11/2024: On Writing Publicly and Record Player Table
Links for the day
Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) Hosted SOSS as Microsoft Propaganda Platform With Microsoft Front Group OSI
They essentially promote what they're attacking under false pretences [...] OSI is deeply corrupt. It's more toxic than arsenic.
Anti-Linux FUD, Now in LLM Form, Thanks to Brittany Day
They attack Linux with chatbots
[Meme] When You Discredit People Who Discredit Secret Code
proprietary systems with hundreds of millions of transistors (and hundreds of millions of lines of code)
Links 07/11/2024: Online Manipulation in Social Control Media, Election Deniers, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/11/2024: emacs-guix and File Hoarding
Links for the day
[Meme] Election Day at the European Patent Office
Less than 60 minutes left to cast your vote
Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO) Election Ending Today
In one hour
[Meme] When the Patent Office Does Illegal Things and Staff Speaks Out
many leaks received today
Today We Got an Early Birthday Gift
Exciting times
[Meme] Going Too Far to the Left Can Breed Militant Ideology
Some people can never be appeased because they prefer not to be appeased
Apple's Debt Has Skyrocketed While Gimmicks Like Vision Pro Failed
In Apple's case, the debt is almost double the "Cash on Hand", which isn't even cash
FSF Expressed No Preference Regarding Presidential Candidates (Its Founder Did)
Because he is a principled person, he does not prioritise loyalty to customers or employers (money)
A President Trump is Excellent News to Microsoft
His racist policies gave lots of contracts to Microsoft
Who Next on the Linux Foundation's 'Kill List'?
Remember that only about 2% of the "Linux" Foundation's budget goes to Linux
Links 07/11/2024: Facebook Scams, Journalists on Strike
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 06, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 06, 2024
Microsoft-Connected Publishers Want Us to Think That Linux is Some Sort of a Virus and a "Backdoor"
"The problem is with windows and the attack vector is via Windows"
We've Made it to 18! Here's to Another 18!
Going on for another 18 years means until some time at the end of 2042
Links 07/11/2024: Political Angst and Laptop Issues
Links for the day
Even LKML Subjected to Slop/SPAM by Guardian Digital, Inc (linuxsecurity.com)
They're really awful
Links 06/11/2024: BPF in RFC 9669, More Facebook Fines for Privacy Abuses
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/11/2024: Political Shock and Hermaic Encouragement
Links for the day
Planet Debian Allows Politics (But It Depends on Your Opinions and Debian's Big Sponsors)
Planet Debian is OK with politics... as long as all your political opinions are the "correct" ones and you add cute animals
What Makes RMS Such an Attractive Target ('Discreditisation' Campaigns)
Don't be so easily fooled
The Biggest OEMs or Vendors of GNU/Linux Stopped Competing With Microsoft (Which Pays Them to Promote Windows, Too)
Where are the competition authorities (or regulators for that matter)?
Let's Encrypt Falls to a New Low of Only 0.6% of Gemini Capsules Known to Lupa
In Gemini Protocol, certificates for encryption are required, but centralised Certificate Authorities (CAs) aren't needed
Computer-Generator Crap Flooding the Web, the Latest Example About "Linux"
Here's today's example
Links 06/11/2024: Election Disinformation and Legal Actions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/11/2024: Stargazing and Death on Hallowe'en
Links for the day
Would You Trust a Liar?
Why lie about the authorship?
Mass Layoffs at Mozilla Announced During US Elections
Maybe nobody will notice?
[Meme] Announcing "Results" Before Everyone Even "Played"
There is a "tech" angle to otherwise political news
US Polls Close in One Minute (Social Control Media Does Not Care, Will Not Wait)
US election results will be known in about 2 days
Concentration and Centralisation Versus Aggregation or Syndication
KDE has a history of burying old sites
Social Control Media, Even Hours Before Polls Have Closed
Has social control media controlled by CPC (TikTok) and the Trumpmobile guy (Musk's "X") done enough to convince people not to even vote (based on presumptive "results", presented a long time before all polls have closed)?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 05, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 05, 2024
Wayland Pains in Community-Led Distros of GNU/Linux
Few people and companies use Wayland; there's hardly any technical or practical reason to choose it
IBM Still Conflating Microsoft With 'Security'
As a meme
Sanctions Cause Fragmentation in Software
some Chinese Linux developers are already subjected to restrictions similar to Russians'
Web Failing With Slop, Even in 'Linux' Sites (LLM Spam)
Add SEO prompting to the mix and the Web becomes a pool of slop, not knowledge
[Meme] State of the World Wide Web and Online Journalism
Technically a failure (DRM) and cannot even get basic things right
Trump's signature policy, building a wall, copied from Irish-Australian student politician
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linus Torvalds' self-deprecating LKML CoC mail linked to Hitler's first writing: Gemlich letter
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] Turning 18 in One Day
just one more day