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Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2011 09:28:39 -0700
From: Kees Cook <kees@...ntu.com>
To: oss-security@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: announcing libwipe
On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 01:29:13AM -0500, Andrew Clausen wrote:
> to the original programs. To use it for all programs in a single shell
> session, set the LD_PRELOAD environment variable with the shell command
>
> export LD_PRELOAD=/usr/local/lib/libwipe.so
>
> To use it system-wide, add /usr/local/lib/libwipe.so to the /etc/ld.so.preload
> configure file.
>
> The program uses two mechanisms:
> (1) when memory is deallocated with free(3), it is zeroed out.
> (2) when the process terminates, the entire memory is zeroed out.
Cool, thanks for the announcement.
#1 can also be done using glibc's $MALLOC_PERTURB_ environment variable (it
initializes memory with new() to its value, and then fills memory with the
inverse on free(). For example, "export MALLOC_PERTURB_=85" will get you an
alternating bit pattern.
Feature #2, however, is not handled by MALLOC_PERTURB_, and there isn't a
particularly good way I've found to set MALLOC_PERTURB_ globally, unlike
the /etc/ld.so.preload example for libwipe.
If libwipe grew similar bit-pattern handling for new(), it could be used
for similar purposes (trying to ferret out use-after-free or
use-before-init bugs in general).
Thanks,
-Kees
--
Kees Cook
Ubuntu Security Team
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