diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/security')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/security/self-protection.txt | 28 |
1 files changed, 18 insertions, 10 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/security/self-protection.txt b/Documentation/security/self-protection.txt index babd6378ec05..3010576c9fca 100644 --- a/Documentation/security/self-protection.txt +++ b/Documentation/security/self-protection.txt @@ -183,8 +183,9 @@ provide meaningful defenses. ### Canaries, blinding, and other secrets It should be noted that things like the stack canary discussed earlier -are technically statistical defenses, since they rely on a (leakable) -secret value. +are technically statistical defenses, since they rely on a secret value, +and such values may become discoverable through an information exposure +flaw. Blinding literal values for things like JITs, where the executable contents may be partially under the control of userspace, need a similar @@ -199,8 +200,8 @@ working?) in order to maximize their success. Since the location of kernel memory is almost always instrumental in mounting a successful attack, making the location non-deterministic raises the difficulty of an exploit. (Note that this in turn makes -the value of leaks higher, since they may be used to discover desired -memory locations.) +the value of information exposures higher, since they may be used to +discover desired memory locations.) #### Text and module base @@ -222,14 +223,21 @@ become more difficult to locate. Much of the kernel's dynamic memory (e.g. kmalloc, vmalloc, etc) ends up being relatively deterministic in layout due to the order of early-boot initializations. If the base address of these areas is not the same -between boots, targeting them is frustrated, requiring a leak specific -to the region. +between boots, targeting them is frustrated, requiring an information +exposure specific to the region. + +#### Structure layout + +By performing a per-build randomization of the layout of sensitive +structures, attacks must either be tuned to known kernel builds or expose +enough kernel memory to determine structure layouts before manipulating +them. -## Preventing Leaks +## Preventing Information Exposures Since the locations of sensitive structures are the primary target for -attacks, it is important to defend against leaks of both kernel memory +attacks, it is important to defend against exposure of both kernel memory addresses and kernel memory contents (since they may contain kernel addresses or other sensitive things like canary values). @@ -250,8 +258,8 @@ sure structure holes are cleared. When releasing memory, it is best to poison the contents (clear stack on syscall return, wipe heap memory on a free), to avoid reuse attacks that rely on the old contents of memory. This frustrates many uninitialized -variable attacks, stack info leaks, heap info leaks, and use-after-free -attacks. +variable attacks, stack content exposures, heap content exposures, and +use-after-free attacks. ### Destination tracking |