Re: Lets make sure these are fixed (was: Tim Newsham)

[avalon () coombs anu edu au (Darren Reed)]

[...]
> Question I have is - how does doing all those saves and restores in
> SPARC assembler result in the user being able to modify the ucred struct
> in a running program without privs to modify memory directly?  I suppose
> a workaround would be to (cringe) disable ps temporarily, or forthose
> who can, modify it to not show that address info and and deny the info
> needed to find the ucred struct in a running program, at least until a
> real fix is devised.  Perhaps another idea would be to devise some test
> to result in the process being killed when a user overflows the register
> windows (hell, I'm really groping here, so bear with me).

There are patches for the stack frame bug and restricting access just won't
work at all.  The program is writing/reading /dev/kmem (effectively).

Even if the kernel executeable is unreadable so you can't get a namelist
easily, you're still no better off than stopping this one particular
script from working.

[...]
> 'Bout time source licenses (for reconfig rights only, not derived works,
> a hefty fee and royalties are appropriate for that) became more affordable
> so honest folk would have access and a better chance of dealing with
> these people.  That would at least allow enough differences to be
> introduced that crackers would not be assured of identical conditions
> from site to site.
[...]

It also creates more work for you.  Having binary distribs is sometimes
a blessing in disguise if you're busy.

It is also more work for Sun, they have to distribute source code updates
as well as binary updates in patches.  And then you have to patch and
recompile.

But, if you've got source code, keeping it any place on the net in an
accessible (even if read-only) is counterproductive if you have any
security goals.

IF 4.4-Lite has `bin mail' fixed, then why not buy a 4.4-Lite CD-ROM,
compile theirs and use that in place of Sun's ?  That's what I'd do.
You'll have the source code too.  Heck, why not `upgrade'/install
netbsd-sparc ?  It's binary compatible, to the point of being able to
run X11R5 on a Sun4c.  It's currently not totally bug-free, but you *do*
have source to patch yourself as needed.

How many other bits and pieces now have plug-in replacements in the
interests of security ?  Hmmm ?  That's why we have packages like
logdaemon, etc.  rm those insecure/unknown binaries and use source
code..

darren