Questioning Google's Disclosure Timeline Motivations

An anonymous reader writes "The presence of 0-day vulnerability exploitation is often a real and considerable threat to the Internet — particularly when very popular consumer-level software is the target. Google's stance on a 60day turnaround of vulnerability fixes from discovery, and a 7-day turnaround of fixes for actively exploited unpatched vulnerabilities, is rather naive and devoid of commercial reality. As a web services company it is much easier for Google to develop and roll out fixes promptly — but for 95+% of the rest of the world's software development companies making thick-client, server and device-specific software this is unrealistic. Statements like these from Google clearly serve their business objectives. As predominantly a web services company with many of the world's best software engineers and researchers working for them. One could argue that Google's applications and software should already be impervious to vulnerabilities (i.e. they should have discovered them themselves through internal QA processes) — rather than relying upon external researchers and bug hunters stumbling over them."

Perhaps Google does tell companies...

[hsmith]

And they simply don't do anything? I've contacted companies about security flaws I've found in their products and was met with deafening silence.

Until I publicly announce them on platforms like Twitter, then you have their full attention.

Exactly...

[theshowmecanuck]

Testing can find the presence of bugs, not the absence of them. An ages old adage that has withstood the test of time because it is true. Only the new to the game or naive would think otherwise.

Critical vulnerabilities under active exploitation

[mattiaza]

Google recommends 7 days for "critical vulnerabilities under active exploitation", and 60 days for vulnerabilities that are assumed to not yet be known to attackers.

Frankly, even 7 days is too long for active attacks. Publishing the vulnerability lets users to use a workaround or shut down the service or app entirely until a fix is released.