Re: [PATCH 06/10] x86/cet: Add arch_prctl functions for shadow stack

[Yu-cheng Yu <yu-cheng.yu@intel.com>]

On Tue, 2018-06-19 at 09:44 -0700, Kees Cook wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 19, 2018 at 7:50 AM, Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net
> > wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > On Jun 18, 2018, at 5:52 PM, Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
> > > wrote:
> > > Following Linus's request for "slow introduction" of new security
> > > features, likely the best approach is to default to "relaxed"
> > > (with a
> > > warning about down-grades), and allow distros/end-users to pick
> > > "forced" if they know their libraries are all CET-enabled.
> > I still dona??t get what a??relaxeda?? is for.A A I think the right design
> > is:
> > 
> > Processes start with CET on or off depending on the ELF note, but
> > they start with CET unlocked no matter what. They can freely switch
> > CET on and off (subject to being clever enough not to crash if they
> > turn it on and then return right off the end of the shadow stack)
> > until they call ARCH_CET_LOCK.
> I'm fine with this. I'd expect modern loaders to just turn on CET and
> ARCH_CET_LOCK immediately and be done with it. :P

This is the current implementation. A If the loader has CET in its ELF
header, it is executed with CET on. A The loader will turn off CET if
the application being loaded does not support it (in the ELF header).
A The loader calls ARCH_CET_LOCK before passing to the application. A But
how do we handle dlopen?

> > 
> > Ptrace gets new APIs to turn CET on and off and to lock and unlock
> > it.A A If an attacker finds a a??ptrace me and turn off CETa?? gadget,
> > then they might as well just do a??ptrace me and write shell codea??
> > instead. Ita??s basically the same gadget. Keep in mind that the
> > actual sequence of syscalls to do this is incredibly complicated.
> Right -- if an attacker can control ptrace of the target, we're way
> past CET. The only concern I have, though, is taking advantage of
> expected ptracing. For example: browsers tend to have crash handlers
> that launch a ptracer. If ptracing disabled CET for all threads, this
> won't by safe: an attacker just gains control in two threads, crashes
> one to get the ptracer to attach, which disables CET in the other
> thread and the attacker continues ROP as normal. As long as the
> ptrace
> disabling is thread-specific, I think this will be okay.

If ptrace can turn CET on/off and it is thread-specific, do we still
need ptrace lock/unlock?

Yu-cheng