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Date:      Mon, 11 Aug 2003 12:38:11 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Robert Watson <rwatson@freebsd.org>
To:        Jason Dambrosio <jason@wiz.cx>
Cc:        FreeBSD Security Advisories <security@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD Security Advisory FreeBSD-SA-03:09.signal
Message-ID:  <Pine.NEB.3.96L.1030811123553.64564A-100000@fledge.watson.org>
In-Reply-To: <20030811063316.GA85000@tekgenesis.net>

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On Sun, 10 Aug 2003, Jason Dambrosio wrote:

> > IV.  Workaround
> > 
> > There is no workaround for the local denial-of-service attack.
> 
>     Wouldn't a possible workaround be, to load a kld module that would
> replace the ptrace(2) system call with a patched one? I remember doing
> such a trick for modifying other system calls using kld modules... 

Yes; it should be fairly trivial to write a kernel module that modifies
the system call vector to wrap the current ptrace() and performs extra
run-time argument checking.  Off-hand, I don't remember if the ptrace() 
argument in question involves an extra copyin() -- if so, a competent
attacker could race the system call wrapper, but if not, it should be
pretty secure.  I was thinking about writing one while driving to work
today; I may get around to it this evening sometime, unless someone else
gets there first.  I know we support ptrace() in the Linux emulation on
-current (maybe also -stable) -- I'm not sure if you'd also need to wrap
that interface or not. 

Robert N M Watson             FreeBSD Core Team, TrustedBSD Projects
robert@fledge.watson.org      Network Associates Laboratories




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