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Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2021 18:40:59 +0000
From: Travis Finkenauer <tmfink@...iper.net>
To: "oss-security@...ts.openwall.com" <oss-security@...ts.openwall.com>
Subject: Re: IMA gadgets
> On Dec 1, 2021, at 12:06 AM, Johannes Segitz <jsegitz@...e.de> wrote:
>
> From a security POV it doesn't
> help much (on a normal Linux system, can be different if you really strip
> it down).
I agree. It's difficult to add an IMA-like security policy that is both effective and general-purpose. But, if you don't care about your system being general-purpose, IMA can be useful on "locked-down vendor systems".
If you can use IMA to enforce a "write XOR execute" policy on a filesystem, then you could have separate filesystems for executable code and writeable config. For example, you could:
1) Have your executable code in a read-only squashfs filesystem. Use IMA to enforce only signed binaries will run.
2) Put writeable data in a "noexec" filesystem.
3) Lock-down (or remove) interpreters (python, perl, bash, etc.) that could "execute" data whose provenance does not come from a signed, read-only filesystem.
Such a locked-down setup provides some security by trying to ensure only vendor-provided code is executed.
But, this setup is probably not suitable for a general-purpose end-user system.
-Travis
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