xv6/web/l-okws.txt

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2008-09-03 04:50:04 +00:00
Security
-------------------
I. 2 Intro Examples
II. Security Overview
III. Server Security: Offense + Defense
IV. Unix Security + POLP
V. Example: OKWS
VI. How to Build a Website
I. Intro Examples
--------------------
1. Apache + OpenSSL 0.9.6a (CAN 2002-0656)
- SSL = More security!
unsigned int j;
p=(unsigned char *)s->init_buf->data;
j= *(p++);
s->session->session_id_length=j;
memcpy(s->session->session_id,p,j);
- the result: an Apache worm
2. SparkNotes.com 2000:
- New profile feature that displays "public" information about users
but bug that made e-mail addresses "public" by default.
- New program for getting that data:
http://www.sparknotes.com/getprofile.cgi?id=1343
II. Security Overview
----------------------
What Is Security?
- Protecting your system from attack.
What's an attack?
- Stealing data
- Corrupting data
- Controlling resources
- DOS
Why attack?
- Money
- Blackmail / extortion
- Vendetta
- intellectual curiosity
- fame
Security is a Big topic
- Server security -- today's focus. There's some machine sitting on the
Internet somewhere, with a certain interface exposed, and attackers
want to circumvent it.
- Why should you trust your software?
- Client security
- Clients are usually servers, so they have many of the same issues.
- Slight simplification: people across the network cannot typically
initiate connections.
- Has a "fallible operator":
- Spyware
- Drive-by-Downloads
- Client security turns out to be much harder -- GUI considerations,
look inside the browser and the applications.
- Systems community can more easily handle server security.
- We think mainly of servers.
III. Server Security: Offense and Defense
-----------------------------------------
- Show picture of a Web site.
Attacks | Defense
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Break into DB from net | 1. FW it off
2. Break into WS on telnet | 2. FW it off
3. Buffer overrun in Apache | 3. Patch apache / use better lang?
4. Buffer overrun in our code | 4. Use better lang / isolate it
5. SQL injection | 5. Better escaping / don't interpret code.
6. Data scraping. | 6. Use a sparse UID space.
7. PW sniffing | 7. ???
8. Fetch /etc/passwd and crack | 8. Don't expose /etc/passwd
PW |
9. Root escalation from apache | 9. No setuid programs available to Apache
10. XSS |10. Filter JS and input HTML code.
11. Keystroke recorded on sys- |11. Client security
admin's desktop (planetlab) |
12. DDOS |12. ???
Summary:
- That we want private data to be available to right people makes
this problem hard in the first place. Internet servers are there
for a reason.
- Security != "just encrypt your data;" this in fact can sometimes
make the problem worse.
- Best to prevent break-ins from happening in the first place.
- If they do happen, want to limit their damage (POLP).
- Security policies are difficult to express / package up neatly.
IV. Design According to POLP (in Unix)
---------------------------------------
- Assume any piece of a system can be compromised, by either bad
programming or malicious attack.
- Try to limit the damage done by such a compromise (along the lines
of the 4 attack goals).
<Draw a picture of a server process on Unix, w/ other processes>
What's the goal on Unix?
- Keep processes from communicating that don't have to:
- limit FS, IPC, signals, ptrace
- Strip away unneeded privilege
- with respect to network, FS.
- Strip away FS access.
How on Unix?
- setuid/setgid
- system call interposition
- chroot (away from setuid executables, /etc/passwd, /etc/ssh/..)
<show Code snippet>
How do you write chroot'ed programs?
- What about shared libraries?
- /etc/resolv.conf?
- Can chroot'ed programs access the FS at all? What if they need
to write to the FS or read from the FS?
- Fd's are *capabilities*; can pass them to chroot'ed services,
thereby opening new files on its behalf.
- Unforgeable - can only get them from the kernel via open/socket, etc.
Unix Shortcomings (round 1)
- It's bad to run as root!
- Yet, need root for:
- chroot
- setuid/setgid to a lower-privileged user
- create a new user ID
- Still no guarantee that we've cut off all channels
- 200 syscalls!
- Default is to give most/all privileges.
- Can "break out" of chroot jails?
- Can still exploit race conditions in the kernel to escalate privileges.
Sidebar
- setuid / setuid misunderstanding
- root / root misunderstanding
- effective vs. real vs. saved set-user-ID
V. OKWS
-------
- Taking these principles as far as possible.
- C.f. Figure 1 From the paper..
- Discussion of which privileges are in which processes
<Table of how to hack, what you get, etc...>
- Technical details: how to launch a new service
- Within the launcher (running as root):
<on board:>
// receive FDs from logger, pubd, demux
fork ();
chroot ("/var/okws/run");
chdir ("/coredumps/51001");
setgid (51001);
setuid (51001);
exec ("login", fds ... );
- Note no chroot -- why not?
- Once launched, how does a service get new connections?
- Note the goal - minimum tampering with each other in the
case of a compromise.
Shortcoming of Unix (2)
- A lot of plumbing involved with this system. FDs flying everywhere.
- Isolation still not fine enough. If a service gets taken over,
can compromise all users of that service.
VI. Reflections on Building Websites
---------------------------------
- OKWS interesting "experiment"
- Need for speed; also, good gzip support.
- If you need compiled code, it's a good way to go.
- RPC-like system a must for backend communication
- Connection-pooling for free
Biggest difficulties:
- Finding good C++ programmers.
- Compile times.
- The DB is still always the problem.
Hard to Find good Alternatives
- Python / Perl - you might spend a lot of time writing C code /
integrating with lower level languages.
- Have to worry about DB pooling.
- Java -- must viable, and is getting better. Scary you can't peer
inside.
- .Net / C#-based system might be the way to go.
=======================================================================
Extra Material:
Capabilities (From the Eros Paper in SOSP 1999)
- "Unforgeable pair made up of an object ID and a set of authorized
operations (an interface) on that object."
- c.f. Dennis and van Horn. "Programming semantics for multiprogrammed
computations," Communications of the ACM 9(3):143-154, Mar 1966.
- Thus:
<object ID, set of authorized OPs on that object>
- Examples:
"Process X can write to file at inode Y"
"Process P can read from file at inode Z"
- Familiar example: Unix file descriptors
- Why are they secure?
- Capabilities are "unforgeable"
- Processes can get them only through authorized interfaces
- Capabilities are only given to processes authorized to hold them
- How do you get them?
- From the kernel (e.g., open)
- From other applications (e.g., FD passing)
- How do you use them?
- read (fd), write(fd).
- How do you revoke them once granted?
- In Unix, you do not.
- In some systems, a central authority ("reference monitor") can revoke.
- How do you store them persistently?
- Can have circular dependencies (unlike an FS).
- What happens when the system starts up?
- Revert to checkpointed state.
- Often capability systems chose a single-level store.
- Capability systems, a historical prospective:
- KeyKOS, Eros, Cyotos (UP research)
- Never saw any applications
- IBM Systems (System 38, later AS/400, later 'i Series')
- Commercially viable
- Problems:
- All bets are off when a capability is sent to the wrong place.
- Firewall analogy?