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Date:      Sun, 21 May 2017 16:51:53 -0700
From:      Conrad Meyer <cem@freebsd.org>
To:        Eric McCorkle <eric@metricspace.net>
Cc:        "freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org" <freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org>, freebsd-security@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Proposal for a design for signed kernel/modules/etc
Message-ID:  <CAG6CVpVXyy4vgkKn_7T1Bw_uth0eS63DiFAOV8ZdecaUmeHFaA@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <e7932a8c-ab0d-4506-ba51-385f39809037@metricspace.net>
References:  <6f6b47ed-84e0-e4c0-9df5-350620cff45b@metricspace.net> <20170327183735.uokjhjaafkawc2id@mutt-hbsd> <e7932a8c-ab0d-4506-ba51-385f39809037@metricspace.net>

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Hi Eric,

On Wed, Mar 29, 2017 at 7:22 PM, Eric McCorkle <eric@metricspace.net> wrote:
>...
> == Specifics ==
>
>...
>
> * A signed ELF will definitely contain a .sign section containing a
> single detached signature in PKCS#7 format with DER encoding.

I'm concerned about the complexity of parsing PKCS#7 (including ASN.1)
in places that need to validate signed objects.  In particular, the
kernel (for runtime-loaded objects).  Complex parsers are a common
source of security bugs, so PKCS#7 doesn't seem like a good fit for
security-critical code like the kernel syscall interface.

Could a more minimal format take the place of PKCS#7 in .sign sections?

Thanks,
Conrad



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