Get APLawrence.com by RSSThu Sep 2 16:50:33 2004
Posted by Drag
Search Keys: OpenBSD BSD
Referencing: /
http://cvs.openbsd.org/papers/auug04/index.html
Interesting set of slides showing what lengths OpenBSD does on top of their code auditing efforts they put into securing their operating system.
Very impressive and looks like it would make over flow buffers exploits a thing of the past, and badly written programs get exposed quickly as part of the process.
Stuff like this is why OpenBSD has the best security record of any OS available to the average person. They are a bit behind in terms of new software and hardware support, and SMP support is near non-existent. But if you need a secure machine it's hard to go wrong with OpenBSD.
More Articles by Drag Sidious
/Drag/B1080.html copyright September 2004 Drag Sidious All Rights Reserved
Have you tried Searching this site?
Unix/Linux/Mac OS X support by phone, email or on-site: Support Rates
This is a Unix/Linux resource website. It contains technical articles about Unix, Linux and general computing related subjects, opinion, news, help files, how-to's, tutorials and more. We appreciate comments and article submissions.
Many of the products and books I review are things I purchased for my own use. Some were given to me specifically for the purpose of reviewing them. I resell or can earn commissions from the sale of some of these items. Links within these pages may be affiliate links that pay me for referring you to them. That's mostly insignificant amounts of money; whenever it is not I have made my relationship plain. I also may own stock in companies mentioned here. If you have any question, please do feel free to contact me.
Specific links that take you to pages that allow you to purchase the item I reviewed are very likely to pay me a commission. Many of the books I review were given to me by the publishers specifically for the purpose of writing a review. These gifts and referral fees do not affect my opinions; I often give bad reviews anyway.
We use Google third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.
I sell and support
Kerio Mail server
Click here to add your comments
---September 2, 2004
I have never understood why W^X hasn't been just automatic practice. There are very few programs that ever need to write into executable space, and as they say, they can be handled as a special case.
I like the stack gap idea - not foolproof, but it could thwart an attack or two and it is obviously trivial to implement.
OSes should just automatically do both of these - if you had W^X the stack gap shouldn't be necessary, but it's like blocking a service at the firewall AND at the server - never hurts to cover the same ground twice just in case.
--TonyLawrence
---September 2, 2004
I have never understood why W^X hasn't been just automatic practice. There are very few programs that ever need to write into executable space, and as they say, they can be handled as a special case.
I like the stack gap idea - not foolproof, but it could thwart an attack or two and it is obviously trivial to implement.
OSes should just automatically do both of these - if you had W^X the stack gap shouldn't be necessary, but it's like blocking a service at the firewall AND at the server - never hurts to cover the same ground twice just in case.
--TonyLawrence
---September 3, 2004
Personally my favorite is the propolice stack smashing protection patches for GCC. You simply recompile programs using the patched GCC compiler, and with no internal code change, you have a extra layer of protection against buffer overflows. And if a program does end crashing because of it, 9 times out of 10 that program's memory management/whatever was flawed. Helps to chase down bugs.
--Drag
---September 2, 2004
I have never understood why W^X hasn't been just automatic practice. There are very few programs that ever need to write into executable space, and as they say, they can be handled as a special case.
I like the stack gap idea - not foolproof, but it could thwart an attack or two and it is obviously trivial to implement.
OSes should just automatically do both of these - if you had W^X the stack gap shouldn't be necessary, but it's like blocking a service at the firewall AND at the server - never hurts to cover the same ground twice just in case.
--TonyLawrence
---September 3, 2004
Personally my favorite is the propolice stack smashing protection patches for GCC. You simply recompile programs using the patched GCC compiler, and with no internal code change, you have a extra layer of protection against buffer overflow attacks. And if a program does end crashing because of it, 9 times out of 10 that program's memory management/whatever was flawed. Helps to chase down bugs.
--Drag
---September 3, 2004
Don't miss responses! Subscribe to Comments by RSS or by Email
Click here to add your comments
If you want a picture to show with your comment, go get a Gravatar