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Message-ID: <CALmYWFvxJSyi=BT5BKDiKCNanmbhLuZ6=iAMvv1ibnP24SC7fA@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2024 18:51:11 -0700
From: Jeff Xu <jeffxu@...gle.com>
To: Mickaël Salaün <mic@...ikod.net>
Cc: Steve Dower <steve.dower@...hon.org>, Al Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>, 
	Christian Brauner <brauner@...nel.org>, Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>, 
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>, Paul Moore <paul@...l-moore.com>, 
	"Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@....edu>, Alejandro Colomar <alx@...nel.org>, Aleksa Sarai <cyphar@...har.com>, 
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>, Andy Lutomirski <luto@...nel.org>, 
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	Christian Heimes <christian@...hon.org>, Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@...gle.com>, 
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	Thibaut Sautereau <thibaut.sautereau@....gouv.fr>, 
	Vincent Strubel <vincent.strubel@....gouv.fr>, Xiaoming Ni <nixiaoming@...wei.com>, 
	Yin Fengwei <fengwei.yin@...el.com>, kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com, 
	linux-api@...r.kernel.org, linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org, 
	linux-integrity@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, 
	linux-security-module@...r.kernel.org, Elliott Hughes <enh@...gle.com>
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH v19 1/5] exec: Add a new AT_CHECK flag to execveat(2)

On Wed, Jul 17, 2024 at 3:00 AM Mickaël Salaün <mic@...ikod.net> wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jul 17, 2024 at 09:26:22AM +0100, Steve Dower wrote:
> > On 17/07/2024 07:33, Jeff Xu wrote:
> > > Consider those cases: I think:
> > > a> relying purely on userspace for enforcement does't seem to be
> > > effective,  e.g. it is trivial  to call open(), then mmap() it into
> > > executable memory.
> >
> > If there's a way to do this without running executable code that had to pass
> > a previous execveat() check, then yeah, it's not effective (e.g. a Python
> > interpreter that *doesn't* enforce execveat() is a trivial way to do it).
> >
> > Once arbitrary code is running, all bets are off. So long as all arbitrary
> > code is being checked itself, it's allowed to do things that would bypass
> > later checks (and it's up to whoever audited it in the first place to
> > prevent this by not giving it the special mark that allows it to pass the
> > check).
>
We will want to define what is considered as "arbitrary code is running"

Using an example of ROP, attackers change the return address in stack,
e.g. direct the execution flow to a gauge to call "ld.so /tmp/a.out",
do you consider "arbitrary code is running" when stack is overwritten
? or after execve() is called.
If it is later, this patch can prevent "ld.so /tmp/a.out".

> Exactly.  As explained in the patches, one crucial prerequisite is that
> the executable code is trusted, and the system must provide integrity
> guarantees.  We cannot do anything without that.  This patches series is
> a building block to fix a blind spot on Linux systems to be able to
> fully control executability.

Even trusted executable can have a bug.

I'm thinking in the context of ChromeOS, where all its system services
are from trusted partitions, and legit code won't load .so from a
non-exec mount.  But we want to sandbox those services, so even under
some kind of ROP attack, the service still won't be able to load .so
from /tmp. Of course, if an attacker can already write arbitrary
length of data into the stack, it is probably already a game over.

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