[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]
Message-ID: <alpine.GSO.2.20.1911201315110.15536@scrappy.simplesystems.org>
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2019 13:28:04 -0600 (CST)
From: Bob Friesenhahn <bfriesen@...ple.dallas.tx.us>
To: Aditya Sirish Arunkumar Yelgundhalli <asy278@....edu>
cc: oss-security@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: Mitigating malicious packages in gnu/linux
The ideas I have seen posted on this topic thus far are about assuring
correct provenance and that installed binaries are based on what the
maintainer/developer intended.
The extreme focus on delivery mechanisms entirely ignores the fact
that development source code is produced in environments which are not
assured to be trustworthy (possibly sitting on hard drives for months
or multiple years), and then stored in environments which may or may
not be trustworthy (e.g. somewhere in a communal cloud). This means
that changes may be inserted into the source code without the
developer/maintainer being aware.
There is also the implicit assumption that all developers and
maintainers have the intention of being good and not intentionally
inserting malicious code. This is not always the case, particularly
if a developer becomes deranged or disgruntled. Not all developers
are equally competent and sometimes a developer submits code with
severe flaws.
Modern GNU/Linux systems have far too much executing code to
reasonably secure. Paring down the amount of executing code helps
quite a lot with improving security.
Bob
--
Bob Friesenhahn
bfriesen@...ple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/
Public Key, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/public-key.txt
Powered by blists - more mailing lists
Please check out the
Open Source Software Security Wiki, which is counterpart to this
mailing list.
Confused about mailing lists and their use?
Read about mailing lists on Wikipedia
and check out these
guidelines on proper formatting of your messages.
