Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262117AbVAYVGS (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 Jan 2005 16:06:18 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262137AbVAYVEV (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 Jan 2005 16:04:21 -0500 Received: from sccrmhc11.comcast.net ([204.127.202.55]:17883 "EHLO sccrmhc11.comcast.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262128AbVAYU7P (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 Jan 2005 15:59:15 -0500 Message-ID: <41F6B32C.7020203@comcast.net> Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 15:59:24 -0500 From: John Richard Moser User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (X11/20041211) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu CC: dtor_core@ameritech.net, Linus Torvalds , Bill Davidsen , Arjan van de Ven , Ingo Molnar , Christoph Hellwig , Dave Jones , Andrew Morton , marcelo.tosatti@cyclades.com, Greg KH , chrisw@osdl.org, Alan Cox , Kernel Mailing List Subject: Re: thoughts on kernel security issues References: <1106157152.6310.171.camel@laptopd505.fenrus.org> <200501191947.j0JJlf3j024206@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> <41F6604B.4090905@tmr.com> <41F6816D.1020306@tmr.com> <41F68975.8010405@comcast.net> <41F691D6.8040803@comcast.net> <41F6A45D.1000804@comcast.net> <200501252053.j0PKr3G4022890@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> In-Reply-To: <200501252053.j0PKr3G4022890@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.89.5.0 X-Enigmail-Supports: pgp-inline, pgp-mime Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1828 Lines: 53 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote: > On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 14:56:13 EST, John Richard Moser said: > > >>This puts pressure on the attacker; he has to find a bug, write an >>exploit, and find an opportunity to use it before a patch is written and >>applied to fix the exploit. If say 80% of exploits are suddenly >>non-exploitable, then he's left with mostly very short windows that are >>far and few, and thus may be beyond his level of UNION(task->skill, >>task->luck) in many cases. > > > Correct. > > > >>If you can circumvent protection A by simply using attack B* to disable >>protection A to do more interesting attack A*, then protection A is >>smoke and mirrors. > > > You however missed an important case here. If attack B is outside > UNTION(task->skill, task->luck) protection A is *NOT* smoke-and-mirrors. > > And for the *vast* majority of attackers, if they have a canned exploit for > A and it doesn't work, they'll be stuck because B is outside their ability. Yes, true; but someone wrote that canned exploit for them, so the actual exploit writers will just adapt. Those attackers I don't think write their own exploits normally :) - -- All content of all messages exchanged herein are left in the Public Domain, unless otherwise explicitly stated. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.0 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFB9rMqhDd4aOud5P8RAgXBAJ9vOzRSZUsxmFOo9W7fROhfq1IBvgCcCINx gTiTNm44vp/hlygaPTdy9UM= =tDcw -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/