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A Taste Of Computer Security
Posted by
michael
on Thu Jul 29, 2004 08:57 AM
from the where-there's-a-whip-there's-a-way dept.
from the where-there's-a-whip-there's-a-way dept.
andrew_ps writes "Amit Singh has published on his KernelThread.com a paper (mini book really) on computer security. A Taste of Computer Security is a VERY comprehensive paper in what it covers, but is remarkably easy to read. This is not some list of "sploits" though! Topics covered include popular notions about security, types of mal-ware, viruses & worms, memory attacks/defences, intrusion, sandboxing, review of Solaris 10 security and plenty of others. Most notably it includes probably one of the most fair and intelligent analysis of the Unix-Vs-Windows security issue that I have ever seen."
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Interesting "book", great read for PHBs! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Interesting "book", great read for PHBs! (Score:5, Interesting)
I would go so far as to say this should be made the must-read EULA for joining Slashdot. It might cut down some of the pointless conjecture and idiotic jibber that so clutters every discussion that mentions Windows, security or anything related. Hell, Slashdot may even grow still and quiet once in while. Not.
- Oisin
Parent
Re:Interesting "book", great read for PHBs! (Score:2)
- Oisin
Re:Interesting "book", great read for PHBs! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Interesting "book", great read for PHBs! (Score:2, Funny)
Amit Singh, thank you! (Score:4, Informative)
The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, the bottom of this page [microsoft.com] shows a list of games that require Administrator authority to play. Why should administrator authority need to be granted to play a game? And to suggest granting Administrator access to people just so they can play them?
I have found no more powerful example of Microsoft's lack of commitment to security than this. I think this philosophy more than anything else contributes to the proliferation of destructive worms and viruses.
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:2)
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:2, Informative)
That's probably because this is the Microsoft knowledge base.
Sheesh.
Tom.
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Games can run without Admin - Example here (Score:3, Informative)
All I did was change where Q2 stored its saved games, downloads and configs. The result not only works just fine as a non-admin, but supports different settings for each user.
Game developers, in fact all developers, have no excuses.
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:3, Interesting)
Yesterdays article on "Phish" scams links to a "test". One of the examples has the marks of a scam but is considered "legitimate". It is from MSN.
I think a lot has to do with expectations and attitudes. I would expect many if not most games on Unix to just refuse to run as root. An intentional segfault is even more fun. NT may have more elaborate security mechanisms but they are too hard to get at. With Unix you tend to get a mess of rwx in your face. Anybody know how to
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:4, Informative)
for you who didn't click on the link
* Microsoft Age of Mythology
* Microsoft Age of Mythology: The Titans
* Microsoft Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings 2.0
* Microsoft Age of Empires II Expansion: The Conquerors
* Microsoft Age of Empires II Gold Edition
* Microsoft Baseball 2001
* Microsoft Casino
* Microsoft Classic Board Games
* Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 2: WWII Pacific Theater 1.0
* Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 3: Battle for Europe
* Microsoft Crimson Skies
* Microsoft Dungeon Siege 1.0
* Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 - Century of Flight
* Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002
* Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 Professional Edition
* Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000
* Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 Professional Edition
* Microsoft Freelancer
* Microsoft Golf 2001 Edition
* Microsoft Halo: Combat Evolved
* Microsoft Impossible Creatures
* Microsoft Links LS 2000
* Microsoft Links 2001
* Microsoft MechCommander 2.0 1.0
* Microsoft MechWarrior 4: Vengeance
* Microsoft MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries
* Microsoft Metal Gear Solid
* Microsoft Midtown Madness 1.0
* Microsoft Midtown Madness 2 2.0
* Microsoft Motocross Madness 2 2.0
* Microsoft NBA Inside Drive 2000 1.0
* Microsoft NFL Fever 2000 1.0
* Microsoft Pandora's Box 1.0
* Microsoft Rise of Nations
* Microsoft StarLancer 1.0
* Microsoft Train Simulator 1.0
* Microsoft Zoo Tycoon
* Microsoft Zoo Tycoon: Complete Collection
* Microsoft Zoo Tycoon: Dinosaur Digs Expansion Pack
* Microsoft Zoo Tycoon: Marine Mania Expansion Pack
Parent
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously, to make low level system calls for direct hardware access in a copy protection scheme.
I have found no more powerful example of Microsoft's lack of commitment to security than this.
While some blame attaches to Microsoft, since they choose to use such a copy protection method with their games, the real culprit is Macromedia, who made the SafeDisc copy protection system at fault.
So, what do you think will happen if it can be proven that the copy-protection methods the Content lobbies (RIAA/MPAA/BSA) are using are a threat to Homeland Security?
Parent
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:3, Informative)
Minor knitpick, but Macrovision makes SafeDisc, not Macromedia...Macromedia is the company that gave us that other monstrosity (aka, Flash).
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:2, Funny)
Which brought us homestarrunner, so it can't be ALL bad
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like a cop-out to me. 'low-level' system calls are just that - *system* calls, and the system should have a way to allow processes run under non-admin accounts.
At the very least, why can't the installer put a 'setuid' (or whatever the windows equivalent is) program that does the bit-banging? Does the 'system' not allow it? (If not, then the system is indeed broken.)
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:3, Interesting)
This is not a fair criticism. The 'security initiative' thing is still relatively new, and they are burdened by a large number of legacy security problems from the many years of development with any regard for security problems.
Most of the games in that list, for instance, were originally intende
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:5, Interesting)
Given that, explain why "Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 - Century of Flight" should still make the list? If software they've released years after they've been aware of these problems still demands bad security practices, who is to blame? The application programmers or the environment in which they must work?
You said, "if an application requires administrator access to run, it is not the fault of the Operating System." Explain how a train simulator could possibly require admin authority except in a poorly architected environment? Then answer, 'who provided that poor architecture?'
This is Microsoft -- author of both these applications as well as the OS. They've had the chance to address it, they've had the incentive to address it, but they have not done so. I stand by my comment.
Parent
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:2)
- Oisin
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:5, Informative)
So the game can have "root"-level control over your machine, to ensure that you're not cheating with 3rd-party apps running on the same machine. It must be able to inspect all applications and drivers in memory, comparing them against a list of "cheat signatures" rather like a virus-scanner does.
Seriously. This is exactly what's happening. Evenbalance.com licenses cheat-prevention software modules to several major game publishers, and they've started disallowing players on XP machines unless they're running under the "administrator" account.
Just read the FAQ here [evenbalance.com]:
Because some cheats/hacks cannot be detected otherwise
The reason you give is obselete- mistrust of the end user is the new, upcoming explanation.
Parent
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:2, Interesting)
Ok, so it can't erase the *whole* HD or meddle too much with the system, but it can do everything I have the right to do, such as finding and using mail clients and start spreading if that is
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:3, Insightful)
You still tend to put a bit better protection around the small amount of root-stuff, primarily because it's relatively simple to do.
The fat non-root stuff, even on servers, is really the important stuff.
The stuff that actually helps with security is that Unix things tend to think that it's a good idea if the user is aware of what is going on, and will go to a bit of extra trouble to be informative whenever and wherever possible.
[ ] Always t
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:2)
Eh, no. If you bothered to read the whole page, you'd see that the list pertains to games that require administrator access to _install_, not neccessarily play, which is entirely sensible.
-Oisin
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:3, Informative)
Also if you look at every major application made by MS, all of them run in user space, I run enough machines in my university to know what application do and what do not work in Windows user space. The one major problem we do run into is Visual Studio, but that is because of the debugging features, which can also be
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, you have pointed out one of the two major failings of Windows security-wise. The other is at least as bad, however.
People often think of UNIX being a nightmare of dependencies, but from a security perspective, the dependency nightmare is actually far worse on Windows. Some of this I can understand, but some I cannot. For example, it is true that copy and paste in Windows depend on RPC. This is understandable (in Gnome, they depend on CORBA). But last time I tried to secure a Windows box by turning off RPC on the PPPoE interface, it would not authenticate until I re-enabled it. Apparently the PPP authentication mechanisms require that RPC is running (works if firewalled) on the same network interface, or at least that is what I was told when I finally called technical support (Microsoft). Granted this was Windows 2000 and I was using a third-party PPPoE extension, but still...
At least with GNOME, I don't have to have CORBA listening on my network interfaces....
If I am securing Linux or UNIX, there is generally it is usually clear what can be turned off whithout adverse results to the rest of the software. This is NOT true with Windows, and I have generally found disabling unnecessary services to be extremely difficuly on Windows because it is difficult to determine what is actually necessary.
I find Windows security to be a complicated headache compared to UNIX security.
Of course, real security depends on the admin, not the OS.
Parent
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd argue that that's a symptom and not a cause. Behind all the technical errors there's a mindset that causes them.
For example, somebody thought it was a good idea to have web server plugins run in the address space of the web server. It's only a good idea if you place more value on speed than on reliability and security. Somebody thought it was a good idea to speed up the system by moving more and more functionality into Ring 0. Somebody thought it was
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:5, Insightful)
If Vendors choose not to allow for this, it is certainly not due to a lack of functionality in the underlying system.
Parent
Re:The UNIX vs MS Windows discussion is lacking (Score:4, Interesting)
No, this is a fault of Windows. We don't know how these games run or why they require admin authority. It might be to access the sound card, or the video drivers, or DirectX or something similar. But in all those cases it's a fault of Windows for not providing non-admin-level access to the required resources.
It may have something to do with backwards compatibility with Windows 9x. In that case, yes, the application probably could have littered itself with millions of 'if (WindowsVersion >= 4) SafeFunction() else UnsafeFunction() calls, each of which would have killed performance dead. They also could have shipped fat binaries or even two binaries, and had the installation program make the right choice up front. All those solutions add their own problems to an already complex product, though, and if those types of bad solutions are required, I'd say it's the fault of the OS for requiring them.
I would also think that if it were something they could easily fix at the application level, Microsoft's newest releases would not make this list. However, since it includes "Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 - Century of Flight" I'd say that in these days of Microsoft waving the "Security First" flag, they have never actually addressed the root problem. And the root is Windows, not the application.
Parent
Sure.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok, so his thesis seems to be that Windows is insecure because it's too hard? Is this guy on crack?
There are too many "knobs." The exposed interfaces are either too complicated, even with documentation, or too weak and limited. Security on Windows is hard to configure correctly (try setting up IPSEC).
This guy can't seriously expect me to buy his argument that properly configuring a unix box is "easier", can he?
This isn't a fair analysis, it's just more "MS is teh gay linucks is awwwwsome!!!!!11!" tripe.
It's really not hard at all to secure Windows, and you can lock it down every bit as tight as any Unix if that's what you want to do. Just because people don't doesn't make it the OS's fault.
How about all the newbies running their X sessions as root because it's the only way they can get the soundcard/dvd-r/tv-tuner/misc hardware to work?
Is it Linux's fault that once you start piling OSS layers onto ALSA and jam the whole pile of shit into Gentoo's default devfsd setup, that it's a huge pain in the ass to get a non-root user to be able to play sounds? Cuz it is. Don't give me the bullshit about "all you have to do is add the user to the audio group" stuff.
What about lazy fucks like me who quit trying to have their daemons chroot and su to another user, because every fucking time they type emerge -u world portage decides to change all the file permissions and ownerships around, so now all of a sudden slapd cant read or write it's data directory, hosts.allow and hosts.deny are no longer world-readable, etc, etc.. Fuck it, the only way to guarantee my LDAP server stays up is to have it run as root. And, of course, it has to stay up, else noone could log in.
I can't remember which distro now, but it shipped with a single * in the xdm's Xaccess file - ie; anyone anywhere could get a local X session on it.
What about every app that uses svgalib having to be suid root, or run as root. Those mythTV boxes and advanceMAME cabs are just big fat fuckin backdoor waiting to be exploited.
The only point I'm trying to make is, any PC out there is no more secure as it's user/owner/admin and the apps they run. Most normal people dont enjoy spending 8 hours a day doing nothing but configuring their systems.
Re:Sure.. (Score:5, Insightful)
> this guy on crack?
> This isn't a fair analysis, it's just more "MS is teh gay linucks is
> awwwwsome!!!!!11!" tripe.
His thesis is actually more along the lines of (and I'm quoting from the Win v Unix section of the article):
"Current Windows systems have some of the highest security ratings (as compared to other systems)... However, the number of documented security issues and the real-life rampant insecurity of Windows are not speculations either! The problems are real, both for Microsoft, and for Windows users."
Nowhere here is he saying that MS sucks, or that linux r0x0rs. Again, from the sam part of the article:
"We stated earlier that UNIX was not even designed with security in mind. Several technologies that originated on Unix, such as NFS and the X Window System, were woefully inadequate in their security."
The argument that explains the paradox is along the lines of what many of us already know - that MS is more prevalent, has a wider spectrum of users (inexperienced to experienced) and exists in a wider range of vulnerable environments - not just cozy, isolated research labs.
So while your arguments are valid, they don't really go against the overall opinion of the article.
Parent
Re:Sure.. (Score:2)
Contrary to what your post implied, MythTV does not use svgalib, nor does it require to run as root/suid root.
It is quite possible to setup MythTV to run as its own unprivileged user that only has access to QT libs, X, the tv tuner, video out and some form of large scale storage.
In fact, that is the most common way to set it up, b
Re:Sure.. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are too many "knobs." The exposed interfaces are either too complicated, even with documentation, or too weak and limited. Security on Windows is hard to configure correctly (try setting up IPSEC).
This guy can't seriously expect me to buy his argument that properly configuring a unix box is "easier", can he?
You are purposefully misunderstanding his point. He was not stating that Windows is "harder" than unix to secure, merely that the "average" unix user will generally have a deeper understanding of how the underlying OS works as opposed to an "average" Windows user. Think about it.
Unix has a larger barrier of entry in terms of learning the OS and understanding how it works until you get to a point where it is "usable". Windows on the other hand has a much lower barrier of entry and a deep understanding of the underlying actions of the OS are not required in order to utilize the system. As a result the complexity of securing unix systems is not as complex to the average unix user since they already have overcome that initial large barrier whereas Windows is more complex to the average windows user because they are faced with a magnitude of complexity they normally do not see.
I do agree with you that Windows can be locked down thoroughly and be just as secure as a unix machine.
Parent
Re:Sure.. (Score:2, Funny)
God, why am I responding to someone responding to a damn sig, espcially an AC...
Re:Sure.. (Score:5, Insightful)
They store config files in different places, with different names (ldap.conf vs nss_ldap.conf, etc). They install apps to different places, and so on and so on. Now we can deal with XFree vs X.org (migrating to X.org on Gentoo also broke, well, almost freakin everything I use, and I still don't know how to properly configure the new font paths for tightvnc)
For that matter, don't ask a guy who's RHCE is a year old to secure a RedHat box, because for all you know, he doesn't know shit about, as an example, Samba 3.0's new config options or iptables (since he was taught ipchains). The OSS world likes to completely reinvent apps between revisions, for some reason.
Whereas, one XP box is pretty much the same as the next, and not far removed for Win2k.
I've had the same problems with both. I installed PuTTY in Windows as Administrator, tried to run it as a user, oops.. No user rights.. This is when you find out what kind of user you are. Do you switch to Administrator, screw around with permissions, and test until it works and you feel it's secure, or do you just go "fuck it" and add your username to the Administrators group so you don't have to deal with that kind of shit every day.
I'm not ashamed to admit I'd put myself in the latter category. Screwing around with filesystem ACLs and group memberships isn't what I like to spend my time doing. My firewall/router is about the only "secured" box on my home lan, which is fine, since I lock the doors when I leave so the likelyhood of a script kiddie sitting down at one of my machines is low.
There is a point to be made, and it's that it's nearly impossible to have the best of both worlds. It's either simple and painless to use (desktops), or super-hardcore secure (servers). Both OS's can function in both roles.
Parent
Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
*NIX disables things by default. This is done for security. Users could make *NIX insecure.
The number of different *NIXs makes it tedious to create viable exploits.
In spite of what the guy says, I think most of us already knew this stuff. Have I missed anything?
Re:Summary (Score:3, Informative)
Play fair. The article discusses Win2K and XP. RedHat 7.2 is a few years older than XP, and predates RedHat deciding not to enable everything by default.
The core security problem with Windows. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's more than just the fact that there are existing applications that expect to have write access to system directories and do other dengerous things, it's that Microsoft doesn't seem to be able to respond appropriately. For example, our early Citrix-based server showed the path to solving the problem of writing to system directories... it mapped system write access into the user's profile, and you had to switch to an explicit "installer" mode to actually modify things in the system.
Microsoft owns that code now, it's surely in Terminal Server, but instead of implementing it they created a high level workaround... the sort ofthing you'd expect to see coming from a third party... that monitors the system and puts files back when they change. This not only breaks more applications than the old Citrix-style code did, but it provides another hiding place for viruses that manage to infect the repository or trick the system into backing them up.
Similarly, the whole protocol/handler problem in Internet Explorer... or rather the Microsoft HTML control... (and being inexplicably copied by Apple and the KDE people) could be almost completely prevented by simply making the protocol and helper application binding the responsibility of the application calling the control instead of making the control guess whether the application it's calling is hardened for use by untrusted pages, and if not then it has to guess whether the page it's displaying is trustable or not.
A better article on Solaris 10 security (Score:4, Informative)
is here [securityfocus.com].
As an aside, items like ASET and RBAC are not new for S10; IIRC they have been included since S8.
Or instead of reading about these things, individuals can download the Solaris 10 Beta 5 ISOs and try them out. Go to this page [sun.com] and scroll to the bottom to Solaris Express.
CC evaluation? Orange book? (Score:4, Informative)
Even though Windows 2000 is EAL 4+ certified, that doesn't mean it is a secure system. On the contrary, the protection profile Microsoft chose to use specifically states that the threats Win2k should guard against do not include either malicious outsiders or malicious users.
A more or less similar situation exists when we regard the C2 certification for Windows NT. That certification is obtained only when using a NT 4 system with several subsystems removed and no network access.
Both certifications sare the facts that a very specific hardware-software combination has been audited. This is so extreme that EAL 4+ is only valid for a Windows 2000 system with a very specific set of patches applied (SP2 and 1 patch IIRC). In other words, totally useless for any serious real-world application.
Re:CC evaluation? Orange book? (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically a EAL or Orange book certified system will not allow casual transfer of data from a higher security level to a lower security level. That is the core of the qualification concept. All the stuff about admin roles, etc is just fluff oriented towards managing the concept and the granularity to which it is managed.
After the wave of buffer overrun hacks that followed the publishing of Alef1's paper "Smashing the Stack for Fun and Profit" in 1996 I had a conversation with the security head of a bank-to-bank transfer house head of security. We were discussing what can we do about intrusions like this. His first suggestion was to raise the security level to B1 or higher. At which point I had to point to him that all intrusions were circumventing the security mechanisms, not breaking through a problem in them so the Orange Book level of security did not bloody matter at all.
On a similar note, Old SCO OpenServer 3.x which had C2 certification was quite hard to hack in its normal mode of operation. Raising the system to C2 and the enabling of roles required to do so made the system a walkthrough. It took me around 5 minutes to get root on it by doing casual operations, no real hacking involved.
Parent
Solaris 10 is so nice (Score:2)
Nice to see Sun can still innovate.
frustrated with "anti"-virus on Windows (Score:5, Interesting)
On this Windows box at work I'm protected from thousands upon thousands of viruses except the one that gets written tomorrow and the idiot that opens its brilliantly socially-engineered email attachment.
This is rhetorical and wishful: when are we going to get some anti-virus software that protects us before an outbreak?
(please don't say don't run Windows, it is realistic but not realistic today right here)
Ditch McAfee, get Trend. (Score:3, Informative)
MS exploits explained... (Score:3, Insightful)
In this context, a rule-of-thumb definition of security is often cited: a system is considered secure if its "secure-time" is greater than its "insecure-time." Secure time is simply the time during which a system is protected, that is, free of "incidents". Insecure time is the sum of the time it takes to detect an incident and the time it takes to react to the incident (summed over all incidents in a given interval):
I've never heard such a naive definition of security. Apparently, regardless of how many security holes my system has, or how many times I get hacked, I can call it secure as long as it can be recovered quickly.
So, by this definition, my system is still secure even when:
- A hacker exploits IIS and downloads all my customer names and CC numbers.
- A hacker destroys all of my data from the last backup; as long as I can recover it quickly, data loss doesn't matter, right?
- A hacker DDOS' our server and we lose several days worth of business. Our system is still up, so obviously it's not secure.
- A hacker installs a rootkit on our server. You see, it doesn't matter if the box is owned, as long as its up and running, right?
- A hacker zombies the machine and uses it to send SPAM, or worse, host illegal content.
Need I go on?I don't think I could come up with a better explanation of why Microsoft will never design secure software than this one: they're definition of what constitutes a secure system is simply out of touch with the requirements of running a business.
Re:MS Bob (Score:2, Funny)
Re:MS Bob (Score:2)
He says: No mirrors. (Score:3, Informative)
It is illegal to republish this document in any form (where "form" includes, but is not limited to, online publishing). You are allowed to make hard copies of this document if you so desire, provided it is for your own personal, non-commercial, and non-business related use. "
Dunno, but I think that kind of sucks. "Hey, it's online, but it's illegal for you to mirror it."
Oh well.