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Date:      Thu, 21 Dec 2000 13:48:24 -0800
From:      Brooks Davis <brooks@one-eyed-alien.net>
To:        kj@indifference.org
Cc:        freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Read-Only Filesystems
Message-ID:  <20001221134824.A29237@Odin.AC.HMC.Edu>
In-Reply-To: <20001221140435.F25684@indifference.org>; from kj@indifference.org on Thu, Dec 21, 2000 at 02:04:35PM -0800
References:  <20001219114936.A23819@rfx-64-6-211-149.users.reflexco> <20001219120953.S19572@fw.wintelcom.net> <20001219211642.D13474@citusc.usc.edu> <3A40BED3.1070909@2cactus.com> <20001220174056.C22288@citusc.usc.edu> <20001220174129.F19572@fw.wintelcom.net> <20001220175931.E22288@citusc.usc.edu> <20001220231205.W96105@149.211.6.64.reflexcom.com> <20001221060108.B26775@citusc.usc.edu> <20001221140435.F25684@indifference.org>

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On Thu, Dec 21, 2000 at 02:04:35PM -0800, kj@indifference.org wrote:
> To be truly, anal. Couldn't one just put a bios boot password on every 
> server reboot (really how often do we need to reboot). And have a serial
> console hooked up to the server.
> 
> That way if the attacker drops the security level and reboots, he can't
> modify anything as the server never boots up. It's major downtime, but
> better then a comprimise.

Unless the next boot is a CD or floppy which does an integrity test of
the entire system that don't do much because as soon as the system boots
the security level bypassing compromise occures.  Unless you're sure you
protected everything related to the loader, modules, and kernel this
could even happen if you just boot to single user mode.  The password
would mean things took longer but they wouldn't actually stop you from
being back doored.  Isn't paranoia fun. ;-)

-- Brooks

-- 
Any statement of the form "X is the one, true Y" is FALSE.


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