Re: thoughts on kernel security issues

[Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com>]

On Wed, Jan 12, 2005 at 08:49:19PM -0800, William Lee Irwin III wrote:

 > On Wed, Jan 12, 2005 at 10:35:42PM -0500, Dave Jones wrote:
 > > The problem is it depends on who you are, and what you're doing with Linux
 > > how much these things affect you.
 > > A local DoS doesn't both me one squat personally, as I'm the only
 > > user of computers I use each day. An admin of a shell server or
 > > the like however would likely see this in a different light.
 > > (though it can be argued a mallet to the kneecaps of the user
 > >  responsible is more effective than any software update)
 > 
 > It deeply disturbs me to hear this kind of talk. If we're pretending to
 > be a single-user operating system, why on earth did we use UNIX as a
 > precedent in the first place?

You completely missed my point. What's classed as a threat to one
user just isn't relevant to another.

 > On Wed, Jan 12, 2005 at 10:35:42PM -0500, Dave Jones wrote:
 > > An information leak from kernel space may be equally as mundane to some,
 > > though terrifying to some admins. Would you want some process to be
 > > leaking your root password, credit card #, etc to some other users process ?
 > > priveledge escalation is clearly the number one threat. Whilst some
 > > class 'remote root hole' higher risk than 'local root hole', far
 > > too often, we've had instances where execution of shellcode by
 > > overflowing some buffer in $crappyapp has led to a shell
 > > turning a local root into a remote root.
 > > For us thankfully, exec-shield has trapped quite a few remotely
 > > exploitable holes, preventing the above.
 > 
 > If we give up and say we're never going to make multiuser use secure,
 > where is our distinction from other inherently insecure single-user OS's?
 
Nowhere did I make that claim.  If you parsed the comment about
exec-shield incorrectly, I should point out that we also issued
security updates to various applications even though (due to exec-shield)
our users weren't vulnerable.  The comment was an indication that
the extra barrier has bought us some time in preparing updates
when 0-day exploits have been sprung on us unexpectedly on more
than one occasion.

		Dave