Re: [PATCH v2 2/3] mm: add LSM hook for writes to readonly memory

Jann Horn
2016-09-28T23:33:41Z

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On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 04:22:53PM -0700, Andy Lutomirski wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 3:54 PM, Jann Horn <jann@thejh.net> wrote:
> > SELinux attempts to make it possible to whitelist trustworthy sources of
> > code that may be mapped into memory, and Android makes use of this feature.
> > To prevent an attacker from bypassing this by modifying R+X memory through
> > /proc/$pid/mem or PTRACE_POKETEXT, it is necessary to call a security hook
> > in check_vma_flags().
>
> If selinux policy allows PTRACE_POKETEXT, is it really so bad for that
> to result in code execution?

Have a look at __ptrace_may_access():

/* Don't let security modules deny introspection */
if (same_thread_group(task, current))
return 0;

This means thread A can attach to thread B and poke its memory, and SELinux
can't do anything about it.

I guess another perspective on this would be that it's a problem that
interfaces usable for poking user memory are subject to introspection rules
(as opposed to e.g. /proc/self/maps, where it is actually useful).

> > -struct mm_struct *proc_mem_open(struct inode *inode, unsigned int mode)
> > +struct mm_struct *proc_mem_open(struct inode *inode,
> > + const struct cred **object_cred,
> > + unsigned int mode)
> > {
>
> Why are you passing object_cred all over the place like this? You
> have an inode, and an inode implies a task.

But the task's mm and objective credentials can change, and only mm_access()
holds the cred_guard_mutex during the mm lookup. Although, if the objective
credentials change because of a setuid execution, being able to poke in the
old mm would be pretty harmless...

> For that matter, would it possibly make sense to use MEMCG's mm->owner
> and get rid of object_cred entirely?

I guess it might.

> I can see this causing issues in
> strange threading cases, e.g. accessing your own /proc/$$/mem vs
> another thread in your process's.

Can you elaborate on that?

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