Four years ago, the SANS Institute and the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) at the FBI released a document summarizing the Ten Most Critical Internet Security Vulnerabilities. Thousands of organizations used that list, and the expanded Top-20 lists that followed one, two, and three years later, to prioritize their efforts so they could close the most dangerous holes first. The vulnerable services that led to worms like Blaster, Slammer, and Code Red, as well as NIMDA worms - are on that list.
This SANS Top-20 2004 is actually two Top Ten lists: the ten most commonly exploited vulnerable services in Windows and the ten most commonly exploited vulnerable services in UNIX and Linux. Although there are thousands of security incidents each year affecting these operating systems, the overwhelming majority of successful attacks target one or more of these twenty vulnerable services.
Top Vulnerabilities to Windows Systems
- W1 Web Servers & Services
- W2 Workstation Service
- W3 Windows Remote Access Services
- W4 Microsoft SQL Server (MSSQL)
- W5 Windows Authentication
- W6 Web Browsers
- W7 File-Sharing Applications
- W8 LSAS Exposures
- W9 Mail Client
- W10 Instant Messaging
Top Vulnerabilities to UNIX Systems
- U1 BIND Domain Name System
- U2 Web Server
- U3 Authentication
- U4 Version Control Systems
- U5 Mail Transport Service
- U6 Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)
- U7 Open Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
- U8 Misconfiguration of Enterprise Services NIS/NFS
- U9 Databases
- U10 Kernel
