A security company has apologized for prematurely disclosing the code needed to take advantage of a serious vulnerability in Samba, the open-source program for sharing Windows files between Unix and Linux systems.
Digital Defense came under fire from the Samba Team on Monday after it released the code with its advisory on the vulnerability. The code allows anyone who downloads it to completely compromise any Samba-based system.

The Samba Team was furious. After tense discussions, San Antonio, Texas-based Digital Defense has published an apology for the foul-up. It asserts that management was not aware the security team was planning to release the exploit.

The code "did not have Digital Defense management approval and included exploit code that was not authorized for external distribution," the apology said. "Digital Defense has taken aggressive procedural and policy measures to reduce the likelihood of a similar recurrence."

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