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Trusted Debian v1.0 Released
Peter Busser writes "The Trusted Debian project releases its first official release, v1.0. Its main focus is solving most (but unlikely all) buffer overflow problems. It features PaX, a kernel patch which does several things. It tries to keep code and data apart, it randomizes stack, code, heap and shared libraries, it does strict mprotect() checking and it also protects the kernel. Trusted Debian also uses the stack protector patch for GCC developed by Hiroaki Etoh at IBM, which adds overflow checks to C/C++ code. It also features FreeS/WAN and RSBAC, an extensive access control framework. More information is available from the website. There is also a demonstration available for the special capabilities of this release."
No remote holes in three minutes will be the new slogan of the Secure Debian project.
:P
This must be a new linux record.
Got Extra Money?
which adds overflow checks to C/C++ code
;-)
Overflow check? But I thought C/C++'ers like the amount of CONTROL that comes from being able to shoot themselves in the foot!
At least, that's what they tell me when I tell them I program in Java now.
Guess you'll need to figure a way around these checks, eh?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
The naming of this subproject is either poorly thought out, or just downright underhanded.
"Trusted Debian" is clearly targetted to compete with "Trusted Solaris" and "Trusted(?name right?) BSD". However, "Trusted Solaris" has been CERTIFIED to meet B2 level security criteria. There is no mention of any such certification, either performed, or in progress, on the project's home page. It is just a collection of security enhancements and tweaks that is "hoped" will merit the system being trusted, but I see no formal proof or audit of that.
Does it use NSA's SE Linux kernel patches? Ordinarily, I don't see much use for them, but it seems exactly the sort of thing that you would want for a trusted system.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
It's available on BudgetLinuxCDs.com as an upgrade to woody (recommended installation method)
This is added as a GCC option. (-fstack-protector or similar) All the CONTROL and power of C/C++ is still there. It's an optional feature for when you need it. I don't usually use C and/or C++ for the control though. It's all about performance.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
Is the "Trusted ***" namespace only given to operating systems that meet B2 security levels?
I assume a commity or something gives you the stamp and that then allows you to use "Trusted" in the name of your project?
The ratio of people to cake is too big
Now it is more secure than Debain Stable and more out-of-date.
Please note that Gentoo Linux also comes with a propolice enabled GCC and a PaX-enabled kernel.
It's up to you to use them or not.
{{.sig}}
...that i never trust any product that has the word "trust" in it?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
I'm not trolling here, but I can't see the benefit of this over OpenBSD.
Admittedly there are apps that run under Linux that don't run under OpenBSD (namely commercial apps) but in this case, I would expect that running those apps on this system would lose the "Trusted" lack of buffer overflow possiblities etc., which defeats the object of the distribution. And the lack of commerical certification for this product would bely using it for such a reason anyway.
A cursory glance over their website doesn't show me anything which would me want to choose this over OpenBSD. In fact given the maturity of the OpenBSD project, and the man hours that have gone in to that piece of work, that is likely to be my first port of call anyway.
I'm not trying to put down the trusted debian guys, I just fail to see the point of their work (apart from the old - "why not" reason). So, if not for the licensing issue which debian has always held close to, why would anyone pick this over OpenBSD?
The Romans didn't find algebra very challenging, because X was always 10
If you work for the Government on classified systems they prefer "Trusted" versions of operating systems (Trusted Solaris, AIX, IRIX, etc.) These operating systems are approved for TCSEC B level security (Common Criteria EAL4 and higher). All parts of the OS are tested for Mandatory Access Control, extended auditing and logging, and data protection. installing any of these on a home system is overkill (and in the case of the ones I just mentioned, expensive). But if you are processing Top Secret information and want full audit trails and complete trust, these are the operating systems that will deliver it. The only thing I do not see with Trusted Debian is the extended auditing and logging. The secure code base is nice, but if they intend to get into the Government with this, I think they have a long way to go.
I'll call an OS trusted after its been deployed for at least a year with no intrusions.
How do you call 1.0 of something 'trusted'? Regression testing and looking good on paper is great, but until you can prove that the damn thing works (i.e. make me trust it) it ain't trusted.
That said, I'm going to grab my copy and play around. We need more security-focused distros. BSD has it right (no remote exploits with a base install), linux needs to do a little catching up in the access control area.
Here you go, you "too lazy to read the article" newbie
it randomizes stack, code, heap and shared libraries
PaX randomizes the place a program is loaded into memory. Buffer overflow attacks depend on the exact location of memory locations. Attacks are much harder when that location varies every time a program is executed. Thus making it much harder for attackers to locate the exact locations they need for a succesful attack. Again, PaX is the first to implement this kind of protection. No other UNIX system uses this kind of protection against buffer overflows, except OpenBSD. But their implementation is more restricted. It will randomize only one aspect of the memory (which technical people call the stack) where PaX randomizes four aspects (stack, heap, libraries and the main executable) and their implementation uses 10 bits against 24 bits for PaX
it does strict mprotect() checking
it adds proper checking to how memory is being used, to prevent badly written programs from accidentally opening up certain kinds of security holes
it also protects the kernel.
Third, PaX tries to do its best to keep code and data separate. Many buffer overflow attacks try to write some data and then try to execute it, as if it were code. PaX tries to prevent this. Fourth, PaX enforces the same kind of protection to the core of the system, the Linux kernel itself. Again, this is unique to PaX, there is no other UNIX system which offers the same kind of protection of its kernel
Trusted Debian also uses the stack protector patch for GCC developed by Hiroaki Etoh at IBM, which adds overflow checks to C/C++ code.
The second product used by Trusted Debian to solve the buffer overflow problem is called the stack protector, formerly known as propolice. It is a modified GCC compiler written by Hiroaki Etoh at IBM and it adds a kind of ``booby-traps'' inside programs which are triggered when a buffer overflow occurs. The program is then terminated before the overflow can do any damage.
It also features FreeS/WAN and RSBAC, an extensive access control framework. Trusted Debian adds more than just these buffer overflow protection technology. Version v1.0 also ships with RSBAC, an extensive access control framework which will play an important role in future releases. And FreeS/WAN, which is able to encrypt all TCP/IP communication between two machines and can therefore be used for setting up VPNs or securing wireless LAN communication, among other things.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
Real security comes by design, not by sticking your thumb in the dike again and again and again.
--sdem
I run a home gateway box with SSH, IMAP, and Apache on open ports. I check for updates daily, and no one else has an account on my box.
/. users) to use something like this? Can someone sum up the benefits?
Is there any compelling reason for someone like me(and most
I'm not downplaying the importance of this kind of project. I can see its usefulness in a corporate environment. I'm just wondering if there's anything I'm forgetting on my current machine, and if this is a good way to address those problems.
http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
I know this is not an answer to many problems, but I wonder, why there is no biger efford put into binary sandboxing. I would LOVE to limit rights of sub-processes. Possible solution would be a user (group) submask. To explain what I mean:
Suppose you are an ordinary user with 32 bit UID
00 00 00 A7 and mask FF 00 00 00, given by the administrator. This mean you can acces all files (and resources) to which you can "chameleonise" UID to xx 00 00 A7
You can also run a subproces, say, x1 00 00 A7 with rights further restricted. This mean that the parent process will have the acces to all result of the child, but not vice-versa. Now you can run a network browser, email program, downloaded binary-only spyware etc. in their own sandboxes with access to particular resources only (say a directory with ownership 01 00 00 A7). They would not mess-up anything else... You would be able to limit network access etc.
Roman Kantor
PS: The beauty of this hack is that it can work with standard POSIX filesystems, you need to add masks only to processes. I am not sure how difficult would be to hack the linux kernel, but it should be relatively straightforward.
All the stuff about buffer overflows, code audits, stack randomization... those are all attempts at plugging security issues.
None of them really have anything to do with "trusted computing".
Trusted computing is normally about 2 things: Making sure that nothing has access to anything it's not supposed to, and making sure that there is an audit trail for who did what.
Example: Normal linux distributed -vs- NT.
Okay... I hate windows.. but....
Ever been frustrated because, in windows, if someone sets permissions on a directory they own, and says administrator can't access it... when administrator tries to access it, he gets denied?
In unix, of course, root just ignores said permissions.. or changes them.
In NT.. administrator has to first take ownership of the object THEN change the permissions... and administrator can't assign ownership back to the other user (though of course, administrator can grant access to the object).
Why? So there is a trail of events. Your file was changed? You say you didn't do it? IF administrator did it, it will show in the file permissions.
Trusted sounds past tense. Almost like Debian was trusted at one point, but not anymore; that doesn't do much to instill confidence does it?. I propose a name change to "Trusting" Debian, as it sounds much nicer. Better still, we should drop the word Debian (how many people know what a Debian is anyhow?) and just go with the generic word "Computer". Now it's "Trusting Computer". See how that works?
Everyone likes a trusting computer.
On a normal Linux system running Slashdot, we see this:
On a Slashdot running one of the Trusted Debian kernels, you will see something like this:
As you can see every value is different.
No. OpenBSD 3.3 has 4 different forms of buffer/memory/stack protection, and Theo says that, not only is there NOT a slowdown, but on a couple architectures, it actually speeds things up!
It seems that the Debian organization's main purpose is to emulate OpenBSD... They are dedicated to maintaining older, stable versions of software, they use NetBSD as the core of their Debian BSD distro, and now they almost directly copy OpenBSD's recent security efforts.
Not that there is anything wrong with that. I just find it very interesting.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
If all of this stuff is so good and improves security, why isn't it rolled into the main Debian distribution?
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
My mistake... I've read about all this stuff a while ago, so I didn't correctly remember which post talked about which aspects of it.
It can be found in this magicpoint presentation. It's several pages into the presenatiton. it's plain text with some markup, so you can just grep through it (look for "sped") if you don't want to install magicpoint: http://www.openbsd.org/papers/csw03.mgp
I've read it other places before I saw the presentation, but google isn't working very well to find them, I don't have links to everything (I'd have millions of links if I make a link of everything, and kept them for this long), and I'm not going to spend a lot of time tracking down where I read this stuff. Check out deadly.org, or the OpenBSD misc/tech mailing list archives if you want additional confirmation, and discussion on the subject of the speed-up...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Microsoft got C2 certification for a specific NT configuration a while back, and only when NOT CONNECTED TO A NETWORK!!
'C' levels are nowhere close to 'B' levels.