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Apple Fixes 'Misleading' Leopard Firewall Settings

Posted by Zonk on from the walls-need-to-be-just-a-teensy-bit-thicker dept.

4 for 52 writes "ZDNet is reporting that Apple has fessed up to at least three serious design weaknesses in the new application-based firewall that ships with Mac OS X Leopard. The acknowledgment comes less than a month after independent researchers threw cold water on Apple's claim that Leopard's firewall can block all incoming connections. The firewall patches come 24 hours after a Mac OS X update that provided cover for at least 41 security vulnerabilities."

3 of 264 comments (clear)

  1. As usual, other considerations... by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Informative
    Apple's "everything just works" niceties depend on things like Bonjour, in particular, being able to be accessed, and most users would end up selecting "Block all incoming collections" when making a firewall choice, because they won't really understand anything else...and "more" is "better", right? So blocking all must mean I'm super secure! Firewall good! Hacker bad! ...Except that now when I get my AppleTV and buy my son or daughter an iMac and expect to be able to do all the cool stuff that doesn't require any configuration and "just works"...nothing works. Why doesn't it work?

    They won't be able to answer that any more than they know what to pick on the Firewall preferences screen.

    So what Apple does is a little bit of deciding for the user what makes sense. The first step was going to an intelligent application level firewall that makes it a lot more functional and easier to use. The next was making some policies that allow services Apple considers "essential" to the whole Mac OS X user experience. And like it or not, Bonjour is an integral part of that.

    Anyone who knows enough to know, for certain, that they don't want, e.g., Bonjour open, also knows how to use any of a number of free or commercial commandline or graphical options to set up ipfw or other network level protections any way they wish. That's the bottom line: anyone who knows enough to "know" they "really" want to disable all incoming connections can still easily do so.

    This is about making security easy for typical, average users, while still keeping things that make the Mac experience "just work".

    Now, I *do* wish that Apple had one more option: Block *everything*, but explain, hey, this is going to break some things like Bonjour, etc., so be SURE that you want to do this, and don't complain if all of a sudden your AppleTV syncing and iTunes sharing and automatic local machine discovery no longer work.

    Apple describes all of this very explicitly here:

    The 10.5.0 Application Firewall blocked all but:

    Processes that are running as UID 0
    mDNSResponder

    The 10.5.1 Application Firewall blocks all but:

    configd, which implements DHCP and other network configuration services
    mDNSResponder, which implements Bonjour
    racoon, which implements IPSec

    So, while I haven't extensively tested yet, it does NOT appear to allow UID 0 processes, but rather only the above processes.

    And from here:

    CVE-ID: CVE-2007-4702

    Available for: Mac OS X v10.5, Mac OS X Server v10.5

    Impact: The "Block all incoming connections" setting for the firewall is misleading

    Description: The "Block all incoming connections" setting for the Application Firewall allows any process running as user "root" (UID 0) to receive incoming connections, and also allows mDNSResponder to receive connections. This could result in the unexpected exposure of network services. This update addresses the issue by more accurately describing the option as "Allow only essential services, and by limiting the processes permitted to receive incoming connections under this setting to a small fixed set of system services: configd (for DHCP and other network configuration protocols), mDNSResponder (for Bonjour), and racoon (for IPSec). The "Help" content for the Application Firewall is also updated to provide further information. This issue does not affect systems prior to Mac OS X v10.5.

    CVE-ID: CVE-2007-4703

    Available for: Mac OS X v10.5, Mac OS X Server v10.5

    Impact: Processes running as user "root" (UID 0) cannot be blocked when the firewall is set to "Set access for specific services and applications"

  2. Haven't tested, but the notes said yes. by attemptedgoalie · · Score: 5, Informative


    http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306907

    - Addresses a potential data loss issue when moving files across partitions in the Finder.

    --
    My mom says I'm cool.
  3. Slightly Disingenuous Summary by ickoonite · · Score: 5, Informative

    The firewall patches come 24 hours after a Mac OS X update that provided cover for at least 41 security vulnerabilities.

    Yes, that was an update for Mac OS X 10.4. This patch is for Mac OS X 10.5. The two are essentially unrelated, so trying to imply that this represents some kind of patch frenzy is at least a little disingenuous.

    :|