[kernel-hardening] Re: [PATCH v5 next 5/5] net: modules: use request_module_cap() to load 'netdev-%s' modules
From: tytso@mit.edu (Theodore Ts'o)
Date: 2017-11-28 23:23:38
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On Tue, Nov 28, 2017 at 01:33:40PM -0800, Kees Cook wrote:
As I've said before, this isn't a theoretical attack surface. This year alone there have been three known-exploitable flaws exposed by autoloading: The exploit for CVE-2017-2636 uses int n_hdlc = N_HDLC; ioctl(fd, TIOCSETD, &n_hdlc) [1]. This is using the existing "tty-ldisc-" prefix, and is intentionally unprivileged. The exploit for CVE-2017-6074 uses socket(PF_INET6, SOCK_DCCP, IPPROTO_IP) [2]. This is using the existing proto prefix, and is intentionally unprivileged.
So in these two cases, if the kernel was built w/o modules, and HDLC and DCCP was built-in, you'd be screwed, then? Is the goal here to protect people using distro kernels which build the world as modules, including dodgy pieces of kernel code that are bug-ridden? If so, then presumably 90% of the problem you've cited can be done by creating a script which takes a look of the modules that are normally in use once the machine is in production, and then deleting everything else? Correct? And yes, this will potentially break some users, but the security folks who are advocating for the more aggressive version of this change seem to be OK with breaking users, so they can do this without making kernel changes. Good luck getting Red Hat and SuSE to accept such a change, though.... - Ted -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-security-module" in the body of a message to majordomo at vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html