Annotation of www/security.html, Revision 1.23
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1.20 deraadt 4: <title>OpenBSD Security</title>
1.1 deraadt 5: <link rev=made href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>
6: <meta name="resource-type" content="document">
7: <meta name="description" content="OpenBSD advisories">
8: <meta name="keywords" content="openbsd,main">
9: <meta name="distribution" content="global">
10: <meta name="copyright" content="This document copyright 1997 by OpenBSD.">
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1.2 deraadt 15: <img alt="[OpenBSD]" SRC="/images/smalltitle.gif">
1.1 deraadt 16:
1.2 deraadt 17: <p>
1.12 deraadt 18: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>OpenBSD Security Views</strong></font></h3>
1.22 deraadt 19:
1.14 deraadt 20: OpenBSD believes in strong security. Our aspiration is to be NUMBER
1.22 deraadt 21: ONE in the industry for security (if we are not already there). Our
22: open software development model permits us to take a more
23: uncompromising view towards increased security than Sun, SGI, IBM, HP,
24: or other vendors are able to. We can make changes the vendors would
25: not make. Also, since OpenBSD is exported with <a href=crypto.html>
26: cryptography software</a>, we are able to take cryptographic
27: approaches towards fixing security problems.<p>
1.18 deraadt 28:
29: Like most readers of the
1.13 deraadt 30: <a href=http://www.geek-girl.com/bugtraq/index.html>
1.18 deraadt 31: BUGTRAQ mailing list</a>,
32: we believe in full disclosure of security problems. We believe that
33: security information moves very fast in crackers circles. Our
34: experience shows that coding and release of proper security fixes
35: typically requires about an hour of work resulting in very fast fix
36: turnaround. Thus we think that full disclosure helps the people who
1.22 deraadt 37: really care about security.<p>
1.15 deraadt 38:
1.12 deraadt 39: Our security auditing team typically has between six and twelve
1.15 deraadt 40: members, and most of us continually search for and fix new security
41: holes. We have been auditing since the summer of 1997. The process we
1.12 deraadt 42: followed to increase security was simply a comprehensive file-by-file
43: analysis of every critical software component. Flaws were found in
44: just about every area of the system. Entire new classes of security
45: problems were found while we were doing the audit, and in many cases
46: source code which had been audited earlier had to be re-audited with
1.22 deraadt 47: these new flaws in mind.<p>
1.12 deraadt 48:
1.16 deraadt 49: Another facet of our security auditing process is it's proactiveness.
50: In almost all cases we have found that the determination of
51: exploitability is not an issue. During our auditing process we find
52: many bugs, and endeavor to simply fix them even though exploitability
53: is not proven. We have fixed many simple and obvious careless
54: programming errors in code and then only months later discovered that
55: the problems were in fact exploitable. This proactive auditing
56: process has really paid off. Statements like ``This problem was fixed
57: in OpenBSD about 6 months ago'' have become commonplace in security
1.19 deraadt 58: forums like <a href=http://www.geek-girl.com/bugtraq/index.html>BUGTRAQ</a>.
1.15 deraadt 59:
60: <p>
1.14 deraadt 61: The auditing process is not over yet, and as you can see we continue
62: to find and fix new security flaws.
1.12 deraadt 63:
64: <p>
65: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>OpenBSD 2.1 Security Advisories</strong></font></h3>
1.11 deraadt 66: These are the OpenBSD 2.1 advisories. All these problems are solved
67: in OpenBSD 2.2. Some of these problems still exist in other
1.1 deraadt 68: operating systems.
69:
70: <ul>
1.11 deraadt 71: <li><a href=rfork>Rfork() system call flaw (patch included)</a>
72: <li><a href=procfs>Procfs flaws (patch included)</a>
73: <li><a href=signals>Deviant Signals (patch included)</a>
1.9 deraadt 74: </ul>
75:
76: <p>
1.12 deraadt 77: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>OpenBSD 2.2 Security Advisories</strong></font></h3>
1.11 deraadt 78: These are the OpenBSD 2.2 advisories. All these problems are
1.9 deraadt 79: solved in OpenBSD current. Some of these problems still exist in other
1.14 deraadt 80: operating systems.
1.9 deraadt 81:
82: <ul>
1.11 deraadt 83: <li><a href=/errata.html#f00f>Intel P5 f00f lockup (patch included)</a>
84: <li><a href=/errata.html#sourceroute>
85: Sourcerouted Packet Acceptance (patch included)</a>
86: <li><a href=/errata.html#ruserok>Setuid coredump & Ruserok() flaw (patch included)</a>
87: <li><a href=/errata.html#mmap>Read-write mmap() flaw (patch included)</a>
1.1 deraadt 88: </ul>
89:
1.21 deraadt 90:
91: <p>
92: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>Watching our Security Changes</strong></font></h3>
93: Since we take a proactive stance with security, we are continually
94: finding and fixing new security problems. Not all of these problems
95: get widely reported because (as stated earlier) many of them are not
96: confirmed to be exploitable. We do not have the time resources to
97: make these changes available in the above format.<p>
98:
99: Thus there are usually minor security fixes in the current source code
100: beyond the previous major OpenBSD release. We make a limited
101: gaurantee that these problems are of limited impact and unproven
102: exploitability. If we discover a problem definately matters for
103: security, patches will show up here quickly.<p>
104:
105: People who are really concerned with critical
106: security can do a number of things:<p>
107:
108: <ul>
109: <li>If you understand security issues, watch our
110: <a href=/mail.html>source-changes mailing list</a> and keep an
1.23 ! deraadt 111: eye out for things which appear security related. Since
1.21 deraadt 112: exploitability is not proven for many of the fixes we make,
113: do not expect the relevant commit message to say "SECURITY FIX!".
114: If a problem is proven and serious, a patch will be available
115: here very shortly after.
116: <li>Track our current source code tree, and teach yourself how to do a
117: complete system build from time to time. Make the assumption
118: that the current source tree always has stronger security.
119: <li>Install a binary <a href=/snapshots.html>snapshots</a>, which are
120: made available fairly often.
121: </ul>
122:
1.9 deraadt 123: <p>
1.12 deraadt 124: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>Other Resources</strong></font></h3>
1.3 deraadt 125: Other security advisories that have (in the past) affected OpenBSD can
1.4 deraadt 126: be found at the <a href=http://www.secnet.com/nav1.html>Secure Networks archive</a>.
1.3 deraadt 127:
1.5 deraadt 128: <p> If you find a new security problem, you can mail it to
1.6 deraadt 129: <a href=mailto:deraadt@openbsd.org>deraadt@openbsd.org</a>.
1.7 deraadt 130: <br>
1.5 deraadt 131: If you wish to PGP encode it (but please only do so if privacy is very
132: urgent, since it is inconvenient) use this <a href=pgpkey>pgp key</a>.
133:
1.2 deraadt 134: <hr>
1.1 deraadt 135: <font size="-1">
1.19 deraadt 136: <em>This site Copyright © 1996-1998 OpenBSD.</em><br>
1.23 ! deraadt 137: $OpenBSD: index.html,v 1.22 1998/02/21 22:25:36 deraadt Exp $
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