Re: Avoiding information leaks between users and between processes by default? [Was: : [PATCH 1/5] prctl: add PR_ISOLATE_BP process control]

From: Pavel Machek
Date: Mon Jan 29 2018 - 08:14:54 EST


On Wed 2018-01-24 20:46:22, Alan Cox wrote:
> > Anyway, no need to add prctl(), if A can ptrace B and B can ptrace A,
> > leaking info between them should not be a big deal. You can probably
> > find existing macros doing neccessary checks.
>
> Until one of them is security managed so it shouldn't be able to ptrace
> the other, or (and this is the nasty one) when a process is executing
> code it wants to protect from the rest of the same process (eg an
> untrusted jvm, javascript or probably nastiest of all webassembly)
>
> We don't need a prctl for trusted/untrusted IMHO but we do eventually
> need to think about API's for "this lot is me but I don't trust
> it" (flatpack, docker, etc) and for what JIT engines need to do.

Agreed.

And yes, JITs are interesting, and given the latest
rowhammer/sidechannel attacks, something we may want to limit in
future...

It sounds nice on paper but is just risky.
Pavel
--
(english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
(cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html

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