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from the your-code-looks-like-swiss-cheese dept.
The Washington Post published an article today which describes the ongoing tension between the security community and Linux kernel developers. This has been roundly denounced as FUD, with Rob Graham going so far as to claim that nobody ever attacks the kernel.
Unfortunately he's entirely and demonstrably wrong, it's not FUD and the state of security in the kernel is currently far short of where it should be.
[Here is] an example. Recent versions of Android use SELinux to confine applications. Even if you have full control over an application running on Android, the SELinux rules make it very difficult to do anything especially user-hostile. Hacking Team, the GPL-violating Italian company who sells surveillance software to human rights abusers, found that this impeded their ability to drop their spyware onto targets' devices. So they took advantage of the fact that many Android devices shipped a kernel with a flawed copy_from_user() implementation that allowed them to copy arbitrary userspace data over arbitrary kernel code, thus allowing them to disable SELinux.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Thursday November 12 2015, @08:53PM
Where do you work, NASA? DOD? There are few places that truly value security focus, and they usually handle it by throwing lots of money at it. Banks are vulnerable for crying out loud. I should not feel like I need an RFID blocker wallet in a world where security actually works.
Even studies of cryptography software show that the weakness on a security-focused application is generally the coding [schneier.com] (and yes, the end-user), and DUAL-EC-DRBG notwithstanding, not so much the algorithm. I'm still waiting for the secure by design OS [kaspersky.com] to release. FreeBSD is nice and all, but as soon as you install your program of choice to actually do anything with your system, you're vulnerable to all kinds of attack.
If everybody's favorite .gov bogeyman department can break in, it's insecure, and we have it on pretty good authority that they can (also recall how THEY got broken into, all kind of juicy info accessed, and couldn't even track the flow of data).
Sorry dude, any other subject I might be willing to let your ego play just a little bit fast and loose. Not this one. It's too important, and far too overlooked.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Thursday November 12 2015, @10:06PM
Replying to myself in lieu of editing:
citation for "vulnerable to all kinds of attack": http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/17/edward-snowden-nsa-files-whistleblower#block-51bf3588e4b082a2ed2f5fc5 [theguardian.com]
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"