New White House Announcement on the Vulnerability Equities Process

The White House has released a new version of the Vulnerabilities Equities Process VEP. This is the inter-agency process by which the US government decides whether to inform the software vendor of a vulnerability it finds, or keep it secret and use it to eavesdrop on or attack other systems. You...

White House Releases VEP Disclosure Rules

The U.S. government took steps toward offering more transparency into the Vulnerabilities Equities Process. On Wednesday it released of the “Vulnerabilities Equities Policy and Process” PDF charter that outlines how the government will disclose cyber security flaws and when it will keep them...

PATCH Act Calls for VEP Review Board

The U.S. government took the first steps toward codifying the Vulnerabilities Equities Process into law yesterday through the introduction of the Protecting Our Ability to Counter Hacking PATCH Act of 2017. The VEP is the internal process by which the government decides which software...

ShadowBrokers' Windows Zero-Days Already Patched

Hours after what was thought to be a damaging release of NSA hacking tools for Windows systems, Microsoft quelled some anxiety with a late-night statement on Friday that most of the vulnerabilities disclosed by the ShadowBrokers had already been patched. The biggest surprise was that the most...

Policy Experts Push To Make Vulnerability Equities Process Law

The U.S. government’s role in vulnerability disclosures is a vital part of our national security and should be codified in law, said a group of policy experts at a panel discussion last week at the RSA Conference. The panelists argued that the government’s current process of vulnerability use and...