Annotation of www/security.html, Revision 1.30
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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">
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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
1.27 deraadt 25: not make. Also, since OpenBSD is exported with <a href=crypto.html>
1.28 deraadt 26: cryptography software, we are able to take cryptographic
27: approaches towards fixing security problems.</a><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
1.29 deraadt 55: the problems were in fact exploitable. In other cases we have been
56: saved from full exploitability of complex step-by-step attacks because
57: we had fixed one of the steps. An example of where we did this is the
1.30 ! deraadt 58: <a href=http://www.secnet.com/sni-advisories/sni-19.bsd.lpd.advisory.html>
1.29 deraadt 59: lpd advisory from
60: Secure Networks.</a><p>
61:
62: This proactive auditing
1.16 deraadt 63: process has really paid off. Statements like ``This problem was fixed
64: in OpenBSD about 6 months ago'' have become commonplace in security
1.28 deraadt 65: forums like <a href=http://www.geek-girl.com/bugtraq/index.html>BUGTRAQ</a>.<p>
1.15 deraadt 66:
1.14 deraadt 67: The auditing process is not over yet, and as you can see we continue
1.28 deraadt 68: to find and fix new security flaws.<p>
1.12 deraadt 69:
70: <p>
71: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>OpenBSD 2.1 Security Advisories</strong></font></h3>
1.11 deraadt 72: These are the OpenBSD 2.1 advisories. All these problems are solved
73: in OpenBSD 2.2. Some of these problems still exist in other
1.1 deraadt 74: operating systems.
75:
76: <ul>
1.27 deraadt 77: <li><a href=advisories/rfork>Rfork() system call flaw (patch included)</a>
78: <li><a href=advisories/procfs>Procfs flaws (patch included)</a>
79: <li><a href=advisories/signals>Deviant Signals (patch included)</a>
1.9 deraadt 80: </ul>
81:
82: <p>
1.12 deraadt 83: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>OpenBSD 2.2 Security Advisories</strong></font></h3>
1.11 deraadt 84: These are the OpenBSD 2.2 advisories. All these problems are
1.9 deraadt 85: solved in OpenBSD current. Some of these problems still exist in other
1.14 deraadt 86: operating systems.
1.9 deraadt 87:
88: <ul>
1.27 deraadt 89: <li><a href=errata.html#f00f>Intel P5 f00f lockup (patch included)</a>
90: <li><a href=errata.html#sourceroute>
1.11 deraadt 91: Sourcerouted Packet Acceptance (patch included)</a>
1.27 deraadt 92: <li><a href=errata.html#ruserok>Setuid coredump & Ruserok() flaw (patch included)</a>
93: <li><a href=errata.html#mmap>Read-write mmap() flaw (patch included)</a>
1.1 deraadt 94: </ul>
95:
1.21 deraadt 96:
97: <p>
98: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>Watching our Security Changes</strong></font></h3>
99: Since we take a proactive stance with security, we are continually
100: finding and fixing new security problems. Not all of these problems
101: get widely reported because (as stated earlier) many of them are not
102: confirmed to be exploitable. We do not have the time resources to
103: make these changes available in the above format.<p>
104:
105: Thus there are usually minor security fixes in the current source code
106: beyond the previous major OpenBSD release. We make a limited
107: gaurantee that these problems are of limited impact and unproven
108: exploitability. If we discover a problem definately matters for
109: security, patches will show up here quickly.<p>
110:
111: People who are really concerned with critical
112: security can do a number of things:<p>
113:
114: <ul>
115: <li>If you understand security issues, watch our
1.27 deraadt 116: <a href=mail.html>source-changes mailing list</a> and keep an
1.23 deraadt 117: eye out for things which appear security related. Since
1.21 deraadt 118: exploitability is not proven for many of the fixes we make,
119: do not expect the relevant commit message to say "SECURITY FIX!".
120: If a problem is proven and serious, a patch will be available
121: here very shortly after.
122: <li>Track our current source code tree, and teach yourself how to do a
1.29 deraadt 123: complete system build from time to time (read /usr/src/Makefile
124: carefully). Users can make the assumption that the current
125: source tree always has stronger security than the previous release.
126: <li>Install a binary <a href=snapshots.html>snapshot</a> for your
127: architecure, which are made available fairly often. For
128: instance, an i386 snapshot is typically made available weekly.
1.21 deraadt 129: </ul>
130:
1.9 deraadt 131: <p>
1.12 deraadt 132: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>Other Resources</strong></font></h3>
1.3 deraadt 133: Other security advisories that have (in the past) affected OpenBSD can
1.4 deraadt 134: be found at the <a href=http://www.secnet.com/nav1.html>Secure Networks archive</a>.
1.25 deraadt 135: Some OpenBSD audit team members worked with Secure Networks on discovering
136: and solving the problems detailed in some of their security advisories.
1.3 deraadt 137:
1.5 deraadt 138: <p> If you find a new security problem, you can mail it to
1.6 deraadt 139: <a href=mailto:deraadt@openbsd.org>deraadt@openbsd.org</a>.
1.7 deraadt 140: <br>
1.5 deraadt 141: If you wish to PGP encode it (but please only do so if privacy is very
1.27 deraadt 142: urgent, since it is inconvenient) use this <a href=advisories/pgpkey>pgp key</a>.
1.5 deraadt 143:
1.2 deraadt 144: <hr>
1.27 deraadt 145: <a href=index.html><img src=/back.gif border=0 alt=OpenBSD></a>
1.24 deraadt 146: <a href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>www@openbsd.org</a>
147: <br>
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