oss-sec mailing list archives
Re: CVE Request: Linux kernel execution in the early microcode loader.
From: Daniel Micay <danielmicay () gmail com>
Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2015 14:22:52 -0400
On 18/03/15 08:44 AM, Florian Weimer wrote:
On 03/18/2015 01:25 PM, Quentin Casasnovas wrote:The attack vector could be from anyone between Intel and people shipping/packaging the microcode, or could potentially be used to get a resilient backdoor on system already compromised by sticking a tampered microcode on the initrd. It would also allow root to get kernel execution by recreating the initrd. I admit these are overly paranoid scenarios, but I _think_ there's still a privilege crossing from root to kernel exec which could make sense on certain security model.Yes, Secure Boot separates root privileges from code execution in ring 0 (according to some interpretations of Secure Boot, in practice, signatures on binaries allowing ring 0 code execution are not revoked, so this new vulnerability does not alter the general picture).
Vanilla kernels don't have this separation even without vulnerabilities though, at without without using an LSM. Even with an LSM, I'm pretty sure there are ways around it unless you use seccomp too... Signed modules and kexec are a step towards that but are still just a pointless formality from a security perspective until the known holes in the CAP_SYS_RAWIO bucket and elsewhere are closed. You can search for CONFIG_GRKERNSEC_KMEM in the grsecurity patch for a list of the known culprits.
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Current thread:
- CVE Request: Linux kernel execution in the early microcode loader. Quentin Casasnovas (Mar 18)
- Re: CVE Request: Linux kernel execution in the early microcode loader. Florian Weimer (Mar 18)
- Re: CVE Request: Linux kernel execution in the early microcode loader. Daniel Micay (Mar 18)
- Re: CVE Request: Linux kernel execution in the early microcode loader. Florian Weimer (Mar 19)
- Re: CVE Request: Linux kernel execution in the early microcode loader. Daniel Micay (Mar 18)
- Re: CVE Request: Linux kernel execution in the early microcode loader. cve-assign (Mar 20)
- Re: CVE Request: Linux kernel execution in the early microcode loader. Florian Weimer (Mar 18)