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December 11, 2005Bidding on 0 day Excel vulnerabilties on eBayWhat is this world coming to? On the Full Disclosure list there was a report with a link to an ebay item in which an attacker was selling a 0 day vulnerability for Excel. 19 bids occurred before eBay finally pulled it. You can see a screenshot here that was taken before eBay got a hold of it. What gets me was that the seller on eBay acknowledged that he reported the vulnerability to Microsoft a few days eariler, but that now, and I quote: It can be assumed that no patch addressing this vulnerability will be available within the next few months. So, since I was unable to find any use for this by-product of Microsoft developers, it is now available for you at the low starting price of $0.01 (a fair value estimation for any Microsoft product). Is this guy nuts? Oh... and my favorite part: It is up to you what to do with it, but you may not use it for malicious purposes - see terms and conditions below. Ya right. Like that was gonna happen if this auction actually occurred. And then of course trying to absolve himself from responsibility, the terms include the fact he cannot be held liable under any circumstances. Dude, I doubt that will hold up in court. The special offer was sort of funny: "Microsoft representatives get 10% off the final price. To qualify, you MUST provide @microsoft.com e-mail address and MUST mention discount code LINUXRULZ during checkout. I thought he said he reported it already to Microsoft on December 8th? Anyways, worth a laugh, a groan and finally a sigh. This world is full of nut jobs. Posted by SilverStr at December 11, 2005 03:21 PM | TrackBackComments
Pretty wild. However, offering the discount to Microsoft isn't so odd (nor Microsoft wanting to buy it.) Even if they knew the exploit (because it was reported) buying it would prevent the exploit from going to someone else (who "wouldn't use it maliciously") |
 
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