Re: Is kernel optimized with dead store removal?

From: Henrique de Moraes Holschuh
Date: Thu Feb 25 2010 - 18:58:14 EST


On Thu, 25 Feb 2010, Mikael Pettersson wrote:
> > In the sha1_update() case I don't know whether the stack is recycled and
> > leaked - it may be dependent on the calling function, but isn't it
> > vulnerable?
>
> It's only vulnerable if the data leaks to a less trusted domain.

If it is anything you wanted to protect badly enough that you already have
code to clobber it later, this *is* a security bug.

Not only you remove one layer of security, you also widen a lot the window
of opportunity to, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_boot_attack

--
"One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
Henrique Holschuh
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/