Re: [patch] Add basic sanity checks to the syscall execution patch

From: Andi Kleen
Date: Thu Sep 04 2008 - 09:03:14 EST


On Thu, Sep 04, 2008 at 01:34:19PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:01:46 +0200
> Andi Kleen <andi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Arjan van de Ven <arjan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> >
> > > Add basic sanity checks to the syscall execution patch
> >
> > This just means that the root kits will switch to patch
> > the first instruction of the entry points instead.
> >
> > So the protection will be zero to minimal, but the overhead will
> > be there forever.
>
> Agreed entirely. This is a waste of time and a game not worth playing.
> The only place you can expect to make a difference here is in virtualised

Even that can be circumvented by patching indirect pointers (or pointer
to objects with indirect pointers) in any writable object. Or in
a couple of other ways.

But yes it would still seem like a reasonable useful improvement.

-Andi

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