bashing your head against nation-state social engineering

[Meredith L. Patterson]

On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 10:53:39AM -0500, Troy Benjegerdes wrote:
> Because it's a nice mirage conjured by nation-state social
> engineers to get us to crawl further out into the desert? :)
> 
> Of course, hackers with stillsuits was probably outside the
> social engineering requirements doc.

If that wasn't a reference to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an_bnXUIP0Y before, it is now.

Cheers,
--mlp

 
> On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 06:47:55AM -0700, Subrosa.io wrote:
> > I think this vulnerability should have been discovered with any kind of basic fuzzing. I have little doubt that this has been discovered and has been exploited in the wild. 
> > 
> > How is Mirage OS promising and relevant here?
> > 
> > ---- On Sat, 27 Sep 2014 14:48:24 -0400 Travis Biehn wrote ---- 
> > >From: Travis Biehn <tbiehn at gmail.com>
> > >To: Lodewijk andré de la porte <l at odewijk.nl>
> > >Cc: "cypherpunks at cpunks.org" <cypherpunks at cpunks.org>
> > >Subject: 
> > >Message-ID:
> > >    <CAKtE3zcZ9LuBKvJnFm_RJ3te=MotchXXDioJa17291uHUvFJFg at mail.gmail.com>
> > >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> > >
> > >I'm partial to Joanna Rutkowska's statement that "Security by Isolation" is
> > >the best course followed for -users- of software. [in addition to all the
> > >patching and whatever.]
> > >
> > >Developers of that software, ultimately, are responsible for securing their
> > >stuff. As an aside - separating your complex system into multiple trust
> > >zones, from a development standpoint, is de-rigueur for secure design.
> > >
> > >Security heads have long been decrying cgi-bin. Most of the reason is that
> > >the threat surface is insane - for binaries you have user input that's not
> > >running in some sort of VM [php,perl,ruby,node.js, etc] and existing in
> > >memory entangled with executable instructions.
> > >
> > >Injection attacks, are, of course old-hat. The daemons could have done some
> > >hand-holding in this respect before passing off headers to ENV variables.
> > >
> > >The issue is that 'restricted chars' wasn't defined by a standard interface
> > >between daemon and cgi-bin script. The called function has a completely
> > >arbitrary set of restricted chars.
> > >/bin/bash, of course, isn't written to withstand env attacks - since the
> > >calling user controls the env / and bash is executed under that user's
> > >privileges.
> > >So it is, of a matter of course, inevitable to find vulnerability there.
> > >With one process isolating the client from the env, modifying the env as a
> > >result of the user's whims and then passing off to a sub-process that
> > >trusts the env implicitly.
> > >
> > >It is very unlikely that any TLA 'created' this vulnerability. The notion
> > >is entirely incredible. The existence of vulnerability in such a design is
> > >immediately obvious from anyone who takes more than a cursory look at it.
> > >That isn't to say that this specific attack was trivial to identify - that
> > >is to say from an architecture standpoint it should be evident that the
> > >handoff between httpd and cgi-bin is a location of extreme vulnerability.
> > >
> > >On a related note: Mirage OS looks like it's on a promising tack:
> > >http://www.xenproject.org/developers/teams/mirage-os.html
> > >
> > >-Travis
> > >
> > >On Sat, Sep 27, 2014 at 12:49 PM, Lodewijk andré de la porte <l at odewijk.nl>
> > >wrote:
> > >
> > >> Know what you code, and what you run. Don't be fooled by words and shapes,
> > >> code does what code does, that is all.
> > >>
> > >> We seriously need a way to detach code from mental models to expose hidden
> > >> features. Basically, all computer law is rubbish because everything you run
> > >> on your computer, exploits and all, is something you run by choice. But
> > >> there's no way you could validate the sheer bulk of code. If you want to
> > >> really solve security flaws it'll involve somehow validating the
> > >> possibilities of the code run.
> > >>
> > >> It's a discipline that touches on visualization, automated testing and
> > >> simplification. Simplification meaning, reducing possible states and
> > >> "execution paths". And just making code easier to comprehend.
> > >>
> > >> The problem is that there's either no market for "truly secure" computing,
> > >> or there's just nobody filling the gap. Banks with their Cobol are laughed
> > >> at, mostly, and accused of lacking innovation. They do lack innovation in
> > >> the technical field. And Cobol is definitely not an ideal language. But
> > >> "truly secure" is worth a lot to them. L4 validated is a step in the right
> > >> direction, but catches a lot of wind saying it's still imperfect and
> > >> therefore worthless.
> > >>
> > >> I'm utterly bored by code review. Maybe it'd be better if there were some
> > >> nicer tools to help out. I'm really sure someone has great recommendations
> > >> regarding this. (That don't even require Cobol :)
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >-- 
> > >Twitter <https://twitter.com/tbiehn> | LinkedIn
> > ><http://www.linkedin.com/in/travisbiehn> | GitHub <http://github.com/tbiehn>
> > >| TravisBiehn.com <http://www.travisbiehn.com> | Google Plus
> > ><https://plus.google.com/+TravisBiehn>
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> > 
> 
> -- 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Troy Benjegerdes                 'da hozer'                  hozer at hozed.org
> 7 elements      earth::water::air::fire::mind::spirit::soul        grid.coop
> 
>       Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel,
>          nor try buy a hacker who makes money by the megahash
>