Because it's a nice mirage conjured by nation-state social engineers to get us to crawl further out into the desert? :)
Of course, hackers with stillsuits was probably outside the social engineering requirements doc. On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 06:47:55AM -0700, Subrosa.io wrote: > I think this vulnerability should have been discovered with any kind of basic > fuzzing. I have little doubt that this has been discovered and has been > exploited in the wild. > > How is Mirage OS promising and relevant here? > > ---- On Sat, 27 Sep 2014 14:48:24 -0400 Travis Biehn wrote ---- > >From: Travis Biehn <[email protected]> > >To: Lodewijk andré de la porte <[email protected]> > >Cc: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> > >Subject: > >Message-ID: > > <CAKtE3zcZ9LuBKvJnFm_RJ3te=motchxxdioja17291uhuvf...@mail.gmail.com> > >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" > > > >I'm partial to Joanna Rutkowska's statement that "Security by Isolation" is > >the best course followed for -users- of software. [in addition to all the > >patching and whatever.] > > > >Developers of that software, ultimately, are responsible for securing their > >stuff. As an aside - separating your complex system into multiple trust > >zones, from a development standpoint, is de-rigueur for secure design. > > > >Security heads have long been decrying cgi-bin. Most of the reason is that > >the threat surface is insane - for binaries you have user input that's not > >running in some sort of VM [php,perl,ruby,node.js, etc] and existing in > >memory entangled with executable instructions. > > > >Injection attacks, are, of course old-hat. The daemons could have done some > >hand-holding in this respect before passing off headers to ENV variables. > > > >The issue is that 'restricted chars' wasn't defined by a standard interface > >between daemon and cgi-bin script. The called function has a completely > >arbitrary set of restricted chars. > >/bin/bash, of course, isn't written to withstand env attacks - since the > >calling user controls the env / and bash is executed under that user's > >privileges. > >So it is, of a matter of course, inevitable to find vulnerability there. > >With one process isolating the client from the env, modifying the env as a > >result of the user's whims and then passing off to a sub-process that > >trusts the env implicitly. > > > >It is very unlikely that any TLA 'created' this vulnerability. The notion > >is entirely incredible. The existence of vulnerability in such a design is > >immediately obvious from anyone who takes more than a cursory look at it. > >That isn't to say that this specific attack was trivial to identify - that > >is to say from an architecture standpoint it should be evident that the > >handoff between httpd and cgi-bin is a location of extreme vulnerability. > > > >On a related note: Mirage OS looks like it's on a promising tack: > >http://www.xenproject.org/developers/teams/mirage-os.html > > > >-Travis > > > >On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 12:49 PM, Lodewijk andré de la porte > ><[email protected]> > >wrote: > > > >> Know what you code, and what you run. Don't be fooled by words and shapes, > >> code does what code does, that is all. > >> > >> We seriously need a way to detach code from mental models to expose hidden > >> features. Basically, all computer law is rubbish because everything you run > >> on your computer, exploits and all, is something you run by choice. But > >> there's no way you could validate the sheer bulk of code. If you want to > >> really solve security flaws it'll involve somehow validating the > >> possibilities of the code run. > >> > >> It's a discipline that touches on visualization, automated testing and > >> simplification. Simplification meaning, reducing possible states and > >> "execution paths". And just making code easier to comprehend. > >> > >> The problem is that there's either no market for "truly secure" computing, > >> or there's just nobody filling the gap. Banks with their Cobol are laughed > >> at, mostly, and accused of lacking innovation. They do lack innovation in > >> the technical field. And Cobol is definitely not an ideal language. But > >> "truly secure" is worth a lot to them. L4 validated is a step in the right > >> direction, but catches a lot of wind saying it's still imperfect and > >> therefore worthless. > >> > >> I'm utterly bored by code review. Maybe it'd be better if there were some > >> nicer tools to help out. I'm really sure someone has great recommendations > >> regarding this. (That don't even require Cobol :) > >> > > > > > > > >-- > >Twitter <https://twitter.com/tbiehn> | LinkedIn > ><http://www.linkedin.com/in/travisbiehn> | GitHub <http://github.com/tbiehn> > >| TravisBiehn.com <http://www.travisbiehn.com> | Google Plus > ><https://plus.google.com/+TravisBiehn> > >-------------- next part -------------- > >An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > >URL: > ><http://cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/attachments/20140927/fb6add10/attachment-0001.html> > > > > -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Troy Benjegerdes 'da hozer' [email protected] 7 elements earth::water::air::fire::mind::spirit::soul grid.coop Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel, nor try buy a hacker who makes money by the megahash
