Welcome to the Malware-lndustrial Complex

摘要

Every summer, computer security experts get together in Las Vegas for Black Hat and DEFCON, conferences that have earned notoriety for demonstrations of critical security holes in widely used software. But the bugs unveiled in recent years haven't been quite so dramatic. One reason is that a freshly discovered weakness in a popular piece of software, known in the trade as a "zero-day" vulnerability because the software makers have had no time to develop a fix, can be cashed in for much more than a reputation boost and some free drinks at the bar. Information about such flaws can command hundreds of thousands of dollars from defense contractors and governments.