Dailydave mailing list archives
Re: The security circus.
From: "Dave Korn" <dave.korn () artimi com>
Date: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:11:15 +0100
Peter Busser wrote on 19 August 2008 13:24:
Talking about backdoors in Linux... What if people submit code which is intentionally backdoored? I wonder how resiliant the Linux community is against such things.
Someone tried it a couple of years back, and quite subtly too. And it got spotted and jumped on in about ten minutes when the patch made its way upstream. Sorry, no reference to hand. It was some subtle (poss. integer overflow?) mis-handling of segment descriptors in relation to mmap support, that could have allowed trivial ring0 escalation.
Why do people think that security is only about elevating privileges?
Well, pretty much every security *problem* comes down, at the root of it, to someone or something being able to do something that someone else doesn't want them too. Otherwise it's either a) not a problem, or b) not security. But "Security" as a whole is as much about how you assign and manage those privileges; it's not just "problems" (all of which can be cast in the form of elevations, at a minor stretch), it's also "configuration", "administration", "management", "planning", "budgeting".... all those less-exciting bits that aren't about pwnx0r1ng someone's box... cheers, DaveK -- Can't think of a witty .sigline today.... _______________________________________________ Dailydave mailing list Dailydave () lists immunitysec com http://lists.immunitysec.com/mailman/listinfo/dailydave
Current thread:
- The security circus. Dave Aitel (Aug 15)
- Re: The security circus. Adrien Krunch Kunysz (Aug 16)
- Re: The security circus. Jeremiah Johnson (Aug 18)
- Re: The security circus. Peter Busser (Aug 19)
- Re: The security circus. Dave Korn (Aug 19)
- Re: The security circus. Jeremiah Johnson (Aug 18)
- Re: The security circus. Adrien Krunch Kunysz (Aug 16)