From owner-freebsd-security Sat Jun 13 23:03:53 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id XAA24934 for freebsd-security-outgoing; Sat, 13 Jun 1998 23:03:53 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from burka.rdy.com (dima@burka.rdy.com [205.149.163.30]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id XAA24927 for ; Sat, 13 Jun 1998 23:03:44 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dima@burka.rdy.com) Received: (from dima@localhost) by burka.rdy.com (8.8.8/RDY&DVV) id XAA25570; Sat, 13 Jun 1998 23:03:31 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199806140603.XAA25570@burka.rdy.com> Subject: Re: bsd securelevel patch question In-Reply-To: <199806131219.FAA15482@flea.best.net> from Darren Reed at "Jun 13, 98 10:19:09 pm" To: avalon@coombs.anu.edu.au (Darren Reed) Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 23:03:30 -0700 (PDT) Cc: dima@best.net, jayrich@room101.sysc.com, security@FreeBSD.ORG X-Class: Fast Organization: HackerDome Reply-To: dima@best.net From: dima@best.net (Dima Ruban) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL40 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Darren Reed writes: > In some mail from Dima Ruban, sie said: > > > > Jay Richmond writes: > > > Hello, > > > > > > Just wondering if we should expect an official patch for the securelevel > > > problem that's affecting all the BSD's, or if the one provided in the > > > recent exploit is being recommended? > > > > According to Thomas Ptacek, this is not exactly a bug, and after thinking some > > more about it, I kinda agree with him. (Feature, not a bug) > > Given it is exploitable, whether or not it is a feature, is irrelevant. > It permits the protection intended by securelevel over /dev/kmem to be > bypassed, reducing the overall security of the system. Hmm, this is not exactly bypassing a protection, you know. Mainly because this protection is simply not targeted for this. 1 Secure mode - the system immutable and system append-only flags may not be turned off; disks for mounted filesystems, /dev/mem, and /dev/kmem may not be opened for writing. (this is from man init) I don't see exactly how it violates anything. > > Darren > -- dima To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe security" in the body of the message