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How to Save Mac OS X From Malware
eXchange writes "Well-known hacker Dino Dai Zovi has written an article at ZDNet discussing last week's discovery of a critical threat to Mac OS X, and another announcement of a Trojan horse exploiting this discovery. He suggests that Snow Leopard, or Mac OS X 10.6, should integrate more robust means of preventing malware attacks. Some of the suggestions he has include mandatory code-signing for kernel extensions (so only certified kernel extensions can run), sandbox policies for Safari, Mail, and third-party applications (so these applications cannot do anything to the system), and some lower-level changes, such as hardware-enforced Non-eXecutable memory and address space layout randomization."
Won't matter. Most malware is installed via the user while installing the latest screensavers, emoticon packs, and browser toolbars. Nothing will ever be able to defeat the uneducated user.
Isn't that excactly the same stuff Microsoft talked about years ago and many ppl on slashdot cried "foul!" about it?
But then again it all makes sense for Apple. The iPhone's App Store pretty much does all that. And when it works out Apple might just start an Mac App Store. No executable program launchable if it doesn't originate from the App Store. Or only in some considered insecure sandboxed VM. That could even work, but is that really what users want?
It's a local-only root privilege escalation exploit.
If you're in a position to exploit this, you're already running code with full local user privileges.
Once the system is penetrated, it's game over. You don't need to get root access, or Administrator access, or even break out of the "Reduced Security" sandbox to win basically everything that the guy writing the malware actually needs. Multiuser security is there to protect users from each other, not from themselves.
Recent studies of anti-lock brakes and safety have discovered that ABS doesn't improve safety in general. It improves braking, by letting people brake faster and smoother, but people get used to it and enough people end up depending on ABS that they end up just braking later and when they need the extra edge from ABS they've already used it up.
Before going off half cocked proposing more layers of complex software that has to work correctly to maintain system integrity (because if it's there, enough software developers will end up depending on it) how about looking at what features of systems promote malware distribution? Design applications so they are inherently safe, rather than filling them with holes and backfilling with kernel patches and warning dialogs?
Apple already does address space layout randomization in Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5)
See "Library Randomization" on
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/300.html#security
Notice that the new security features list also includes code signing and sandboxing. The technology is there, it's just not setup throughout the system.
It's not the interface's problem, it's the fact that 98% of computer users do not want to and will not learn anything about their computer. Some people will actively refuse to learn anything. So in light of that, the root of the problem is far, far deeper :(
Limina.Log
Having knowledge is having additional responsibility. It took me quite a while to arrive at that conclusion, but if people can claim they didn't know or don't understand something, they are therefore not responsible for it. This goes well beyond knowing about computers and into all facets of life. For me, knowledge has always been important and desirable, so it was really hard to understand why the majority of people don't want any. But I believe I've hit upon the precise essence of why people don't want to know anything... they don't want it to be their fault.
How would they know if the user interface makes no distinction? You have to fix the UI first, to reduce the level of education needed to something reasonable. Seriously, most user want to run programs they don't completely trust and their inability to do so is one of the primary causes of insecurity. Current OS's make this incredibly common task very, very onerous. Really the easiest way to do that these days is to but a VM, install it, configure it appropriately for the program you want to run, create a new image, install an OS, install the program within the OS, and finally run it. That takes money and significant skill and time and is simply too onerous for the normal user.
But any interface nonetheless requires some degree of learning--"intuition" in interfaces is only, in fact, "familiarity."You can call it whatever you want, but different interfaces and the functionality they connect to make a huge difference in how much education, skill, time, and money it takes to compute securely. Until OS's catch up, people constantly calling for education and blaming users are part of the problem, more than the solution, IMHO.