TippingPoint reveals 29 unresolved flaws

The announcement was part of an update to its year-old Zero Day Initiative (ZDI). As a part of this security research program, TippingPoint now plans to keep the public up to date on the number of flaws in its "Unresolved Vulnerability Pipeline."

This updated list of vulnerabilities will include only the vendor name, the date ZDI disclosed the vulnerability to the vendor and the severity of the vulnerability. Among others, the current list includes six Microsoft flaws, three Novell vulnerabilities and two bugs each from Apple, IBM and Symantec.

"One of the recommendations that we got from our security researchers was that they wanted us to be more open with our program, so this is a response to that," said Dave Endler, director of security research for the company.

Endler said that he hopes that the new pipeline announcements will help vendor customers insist on more timely fixes while maintaining responsible disclosure practices.

"It does place some pressure on product vendors if their customers see that there are outstanding issues that haven't been addressed in six months," he said. "I think its good for some outside industry pressure."

Introduced in August 2005, ZDI has often come under fire for its practice of paying security researchers for found vulnerabilities. According to Endler and his associates at TippingPoint, the results justify the means. In the last year, the program has recruited 400 participating security researchers worldwide and produced 30 publicly disclosed and fixed flaws.

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