[Fwd: Administrivia: Symantec acquiring SecurityFocus]

[KevinO]

Will Bugtraq ever be the same ?

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Administrivia: Symantec acquiring SecurityFocus
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 15:27:54 -0600
From: aleph1@securityfocus.com
To: bugtraq@securityfocus.com

Good day,

Today, SecurityFocus and Symantec announced that Symantec is acquiring
SecurityFocus. Symantec sees real value in the services SecurityFocus
provides to its customers and believes they are an excellent fit with
their current offerings. We at SecurityFocus see this as an opportunity to
provide even better services for the security community.

Symantec recognizes the value and uniqueness of the public services
SecurityFocus provides to the community, such as the numerous mailing
lists we host and the content we provide via the SecurityFocus Online web
site.

In particular, Symantec and SecurityFocus want to ease any fears as to
whether the character of this mailing list will change.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Q. What is the Symantec strategy for keeping data sources?

A. We believe it is critical to maintain the integrity of the existing
    security community currently part of the SecurityFocus portal and
    Bugtraq mailing list.

Q. What is Symantec's disclosure policy?

A. Symantec believes in responsible vulnerability disclosure and is active
    in initiatives to set best practices in this area. Our first priority
    is to help our customers protect their computing assets by providing
    tools and information to safeguard their systems.

    We will work with vendors, if we discover vulnerabilities in other
    products, to report and investigate the issue in a thorough and timely
    fashion, in the same way that Symantec will work with other security
    researchers if they find an issue with any Symantec technology.

    We observe a 30-day grace period after the notification of a security
    advisory to give users an opportunity to apply the patch. During this
    grace period, we provide our customers significant information about
    the vulnerability and the fix, but not step-by-step instructions for
    exploiting the vulnerability. We do not provide detailed exploit code
    or provide samples of malicious code except to other trusted security
    researchers and in a secured manner.

Q. Will Symantec change SecurityFocus' vulnerability reporting policy?

A. We believe that in order for the SecurityFocus/Bugtraq community to be
    effective, it must be an independent entity. We believe that its
    current disclosure policy is appropriate for the venue. Symantec will
    continue to operate with its separate disclosure policy.


Sincerly,
Elias Levy, David Ahmad,
and the rest of the SecurityFocus staff



-- 
KevinO

Matz's Law:
         A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.