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Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call

From Balbir Singh <bsingharora@gmail.com>
Newsgroups linux.kernel
Subject Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call
Date 2016-07-20 05:50 +0200
Message-ID <rWQGe-4wj-9@gated-at.bofh.it> (permalink)
References (6 earlier) <rUs5l-3uO-35@gated-at.bofh.it> <rUwsh-6gf-7@gated-at.bofh.it> <rUx50-6Li-25@gated-at.bofh.it> <rWg9J-6cJ-77@gated-at.bofh.it> <rWgMq-6KQ-9@gated-at.bofh.it>
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>>>>>  
>>>>> Command line options are not signed. I thought idea behind secureboot
>>>>> was to execute only trusted code and command line options don't enforce
>>>>> you to execute unsigned code.
>>>>>  
>>
>> You can set module.sig_enforce=0 and open up the system a bit assuming
>> that you can get a module to load with another attack
> 
> IIUC, sig_enforce bool_enable_only so it can only be enabled. Default
> value of it is 0 if CONFIG_MODULE_SIG_FORCE=n.
> 
> IOW, if your kernel forced signature verification, you should not be
> able to do sig_enforce=0. If you kernel did not have
> CONFIG_MODULE_SIG_FORCE=y, then sig_enforce should be 0 by default anyway
> and you are not making it worse using command line.
> 

OK.. I checked and you are right, but that is an example and there are
other things like security=, thermal.*, nosmep, nosmap that need auditing
for safety and might hurt the system security if used. I still think
think that assuming you can pass any command line without breaking security
is a broken argument.

>>
>>>>> So it sounds like different class of security problems which you are
>>>>> referring to and not necessarily covered by secureboot or signed
>>>>> kernel.
>>>> Let me give you an example.
>>>>  
>>>> You have a secure boot setup, where the firmware/ROM validates the boot
>>>> loader.  Good, the boot loader hasn't been tampered with.
>>>>  
>>>> You interrupt the boot loader and are able to modify the command line
>>>> for the booted kernel.
>>>>  
>>>> The boot loader loads the kernel and verifies the kernel's signature.
>>>> Good, the kernel hasn't been tampered with.  The kernel starts running.
>>>>  
>>>> You've plugged in a USB drive to the device, and specified a partition
>>>> containing a root filesystem that you control to the kernel.  The
>>>> validated kernel finds the USB drive, and mounts it, and executes
>>>> your own binaries on the USB drive.
>>> You will require physical access to the machine to be able to
>>> insert your usb drive. And IIRC, argument was that if attacker has
>>> physical access to machine, all bets are off anyway.
>>>
>>
>> You don't need physical access -- your machine controller BMC can
>> do the magic for you. So its not always physical access, is it?
> 
> Well, idea was that if you have physical access to machine, then all
> bets are off. If BMC can do something which allows running unsigned
> code at ring level 0, its a problem I think from secureboot model of
> security.
> 
>>  
>>>>  
>>>>  
>>>> You run a shell on the console.  You now have control of the system,
>>>> and can mount the real rootfs, inspect it, and work out what it does,
>>>> etc.
>>>>  
>>>> At this point, what use was all the validation that the secure boot
>>>> has done?  Absolutely useless.
>>>>  
>>>> If you can change the command line arguments given to the kernel, you
>>>> have no security, no matter how much you verify signatures.  It's
>>>> the illusion of security, nothing more, nothing less.
>>>>  
>>
>> I agree, if you can change command line arguments, all bets are of lesser value
> 
> If changing command line allows execution of unsigned code at ring level
> 0, then it is a problem. Otherwise we are talking of security issues which
> are not covered by secure


I agree that from what I can see/grep there is nothing that allows unsigned
code to run at boot in ring0, but there are implications like the ones
I've mentioned above.

Attacks are typically built as a chain and every bit might matter. One could
turn off features that might lead to the system being attacked at run-time


Balbir Singh.

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Thread

[RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call AKASHI Takahiro <takahiro.akashi@linaro.org> - 2016-07-12 03:40 +0200
  Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman) - 2016-07-12 15:40 +0200
    Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauerman@linux.vnet.ibm.com> - 2016-07-12 16:00 +0200
      Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com> - 2016-07-12 16:10 +0200
        Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Stewart Smith <stewart@linux.vnet.ibm.com> - 2016-07-13 01:50 +0200
          Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com> - 2016-07-13 15:30 +0200
    Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de> - 2016-07-12 16:10 +0200
      Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com> - 2016-07-12 16:20 +0200
        Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de> - 2016-07-12 16:30 +0200
          Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com> - 2016-07-12 17:00 +0200
            Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Dave Young <dyoung@redhat.com> - 2016-07-13 04:40 +0200
              Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de> - 2016-07-13 10:10 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Stewart Smith <stewart@linux.vnet.ibm.com> - 2016-07-13 10:30 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com> - 2016-07-13 11:50 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de> - 2016-07-13 15:20 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauerman@linux.vnet.ibm.com> - 2016-07-13 20:50 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de> - 2016-07-13 22:10 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauerman@linux.vnet.ibm.com> - 2016-07-14 04:20 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de> - 2016-07-14 10:40 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauerman@linux.vnet.ibm.com> - 2016-07-15 03:50 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de> - 2016-07-15 09:40 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com> - 2016-07-15 15:30 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com> - 2016-07-15 15:40 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauerman@linux.vnet.ibm.com> - 2016-07-15 17:30 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com> - 2016-07-15 17:50 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Russell King - ARM Linux <linux@armlinux.org.uk> - 2016-07-15 15:50 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de> - 2016-07-15 22:30 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauerman@linux.vnet.ibm.com> - 2016-07-15 23:10 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauerman@linux.vnet.ibm.com> - 2016-07-22 02:20 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Jeremy Kerr <jeremy.kerr@au1.ibm.com> - 2016-07-22 03:00 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Michael Ellerman <michael@ellerman.id.au> - 2016-07-22 05:00 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauerman@linux.vnet.ibm.com> - 2016-07-22 22:50 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Russell King - ARM Linux <linux@armlinux.org.uk> - 2016-07-15 10:50 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com> - 2016-07-15 15:10 +0200
              Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com> - 2016-07-13 11:40 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call AKASHI Takahiro <takahiro.akashi@linaro.org> - 2016-07-13 19:40 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com> - 2016-07-13 20:10 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de> - 2016-07-13 22:00 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com> - 2016-07-14 14:50 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Dave Young <dyoung@redhat.com> - 2016-07-14 04:00 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Dave Young <dyoung@redhat.com> - 2016-07-14 04:00 +0200
    Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauerman@linux.vnet.ibm.com> - 2016-07-12 18:30 +0200
      Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Petr Tesarik <ptesarik@suse.cz> - 2016-07-12 23:00 +0200
        Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman) - 2016-07-12 23:40 +0200
          Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman) - 2016-07-13 00:00 +0200
          Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Petr Tesarik <ptesarik@suse.cz> - 2016-07-13 00:00 +0200
        Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Russell King - ARM Linux <linux@armlinux.org.uk> - 2016-07-13 00:20 +0200
          Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Stewart Smith <stewart@linux.vnet.ibm.com> - 2016-07-13 07:10 +0200
            Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Russell King - ARM Linux <linux@armlinux.org.uk> - 2016-07-13 09:40 +0200
              Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Ard Biesheuvel <ard.biesheuvel@linaro.org> - 2016-07-13 09:50 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Russell King - ARM Linux <linux@armlinux.org.uk> - 2016-07-13 10:20 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Stewart Smith <stewart@linux.vnet.ibm.com> - 2016-07-13 10:30 +0200
              Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Stewart Smith <stewart@linux.vnet.ibm.com> - 2016-07-13 10:00 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Russell King - ARM Linux <linux@armlinux.org.uk> - 2016-07-13 10:30 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Dave Young <dyoung@redhat.com> - 2016-07-13 10:40 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Petr Tesarik <ptesarik@suse.cz> - 2016-07-13 11:00 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com> - 2016-07-13 15:10 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Russell King - ARM Linux <linux@armlinux.org.uk> - 2016-07-13 19:50 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com> - 2016-07-13 20:30 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Balbir Singh <bsingharora@gmail.com> - 2016-07-18 14:50 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com> - 2016-07-18 15:30 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com> - 2016-07-18 15:40 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Balbir Singh <bsingharora@gmail.com> - 2016-07-20 05:50 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Russell King - ARM Linux <linux@armlinux.org.uk> - 2016-07-20 10:40 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de> - 2016-07-20 13:20 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Thiago Jung Bauermann <bauerman@linux.vnet.ibm.com> - 2016-07-20 18:00 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com> - 2016-07-20 14:50 +0200
                Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com> - 2016-07-20 14:30 +0200
        Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Stewart Smith <stewart@linux.vnet.ibm.com> - 2016-07-13 01:50 +0200
          Re: [RFC 0/3] extend kexec_file_load system call Vivek Goyal <vgoyal@redhat.com> - 2016-07-13 15:30 +0200

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