Annotation of www/security.html, Revision 1.35
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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:
1.31 deraadt 49: Some members of our security auditing team work for
50: <a href=http://www.secnet.com>Secure Networks</a>, the company that
1.32 deraadt 51: makes the industry's premier network security scanning software
52: package Ballista.
1.31 deraadt 53: This company does a lot of security research, and this fits in well
54: with the OpenBSD stance.<p>
55:
1.34 deraadt 56: Another facet of our security auditing process is its proactiveness.
1.16 deraadt 57: In almost all cases we have found that the determination of
58: exploitability is not an issue. During our auditing process we find
59: many bugs, and endeavor to simply fix them even though exploitability
60: is not proven. We have fixed many simple and obvious careless
61: programming errors in code and then only months later discovered that
1.29 deraadt 62: the problems were in fact exploitable. In other cases we have been
63: saved from full exploitability of complex step-by-step attacks because
1.35 ! deraadt 64: we had fixed one of the steps. An example of where we managed such a
! 65: success is the
1.30 deraadt 66: <a href=http://www.secnet.com/sni-advisories/sni-19.bsd.lpd.advisory.html>
1.35 ! deraadt 67: lpd advisory from Secure Networks.</a><p>
1.29 deraadt 68:
1.35 ! deraadt 69: This proactive auditing process has really paid off. Statements like
! 70: ``This problem was fixed in OpenBSD about 6 months ago'' have become
! 71: commonplace in security forums like <a
! 72: href=http://www.geek-girl.com/bugtraq/index.html>BUGTRAQ</a>.<p>
! 73:
! 74: Most of our security auditing happened immediately before the OpenBSD
! 75: 2.0 release and during the 2.0->2.1 transition. Thousands of security
! 76: issues were fixed rapidly over almost a year, like the standard buffer
! 77: overflows, protocol implementation weaknesses, and filesystem races.
! 78: In the time since then, the types of security problems we find and fix
! 79: have tended to be more obscure or complicated. Still we will persist
! 80: for a number of reasons:
! 81: <ul>
! 82: <li>Occasionally we find a simple one we missed before.
! 83: <li>Security is like an arms race; the best attackers will continue
! 84: to search for more complicated exploits, so we should too.
! 85: </ul>
1.15 deraadt 86:
1.14 deraadt 87: The auditing process is not over yet, and as you can see we continue
1.28 deraadt 88: to find and fix new security flaws.<p>
1.12 deraadt 89:
90: <p>
91: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>OpenBSD 2.1 Security Advisories</strong></font></h3>
1.11 deraadt 92: These are the OpenBSD 2.1 advisories. All these problems are solved
93: in OpenBSD 2.2. Some of these problems still exist in other
1.1 deraadt 94: operating systems.
95:
96: <ul>
1.27 deraadt 97: <li><a href=advisories/rfork>Rfork() system call flaw (patch included)</a>
98: <li><a href=advisories/procfs>Procfs flaws (patch included)</a>
99: <li><a href=advisories/signals>Deviant Signals (patch included)</a>
1.9 deraadt 100: </ul>
101:
102: <p>
1.12 deraadt 103: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>OpenBSD 2.2 Security Advisories</strong></font></h3>
1.11 deraadt 104: These are the OpenBSD 2.2 advisories. All these problems are
1.9 deraadt 105: solved in OpenBSD current. Some of these problems still exist in other
1.14 deraadt 106: operating systems.
1.9 deraadt 107:
108: <ul>
1.27 deraadt 109: <li><a href=errata.html#f00f>Intel P5 f00f lockup (patch included)</a>
110: <li><a href=errata.html#sourceroute>
1.11 deraadt 111: Sourcerouted Packet Acceptance (patch included)</a>
1.27 deraadt 112: <li><a href=errata.html#ruserok>Setuid coredump & Ruserok() flaw (patch included)</a>
113: <li><a href=errata.html#mmap>Read-write mmap() flaw (patch included)</a>
1.33 deraadt 114: <li><a href=errata.html#ldso>MIPS ld.so flaw (patch included)</a>
1.1 deraadt 115: </ul>
116:
1.21 deraadt 117: <p>
118: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>Watching our Security Changes</strong></font></h3>
119: Since we take a proactive stance with security, we are continually
120: finding and fixing new security problems. Not all of these problems
121: get widely reported because (as stated earlier) many of them are not
122: confirmed to be exploitable. We do not have the time resources to
123: make these changes available in the above format.<p>
124:
125: Thus there are usually minor security fixes in the current source code
126: beyond the previous major OpenBSD release. We make a limited
127: gaurantee that these problems are of limited impact and unproven
128: exploitability. If we discover a problem definately matters for
129: security, patches will show up here quickly.<p>
130:
131: People who are really concerned with critical
132: security can do a number of things:<p>
133:
134: <ul>
135: <li>If you understand security issues, watch our
1.27 deraadt 136: <a href=mail.html>source-changes mailing list</a> and keep an
1.23 deraadt 137: eye out for things which appear security related. Since
1.21 deraadt 138: exploitability is not proven for many of the fixes we make,
139: do not expect the relevant commit message to say "SECURITY FIX!".
140: If a problem is proven and serious, a patch will be available
141: here very shortly after.
142: <li>Track our current source code tree, and teach yourself how to do a
1.29 deraadt 143: complete system build from time to time (read /usr/src/Makefile
144: carefully). Users can make the assumption that the current
145: source tree always has stronger security than the previous release.
146: <li>Install a binary <a href=snapshots.html>snapshot</a> for your
147: architecure, which are made available fairly often. For
148: instance, an i386 snapshot is typically made available weekly.
1.21 deraadt 149: </ul>
150:
1.9 deraadt 151: <p>
1.12 deraadt 152: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>Other Resources</strong></font></h3>
1.3 deraadt 153: Other security advisories that have (in the past) affected OpenBSD can
1.4 deraadt 154: be found at the <a href=http://www.secnet.com/nav1.html>Secure Networks archive</a>.
1.25 deraadt 155: Some OpenBSD audit team members worked with Secure Networks on discovering
156: and solving the problems detailed in some of their security advisories.
1.3 deraadt 157:
1.5 deraadt 158: <p> If you find a new security problem, you can mail it to
1.6 deraadt 159: <a href=mailto:deraadt@openbsd.org>deraadt@openbsd.org</a>.
1.7 deraadt 160: <br>
1.5 deraadt 161: If you wish to PGP encode it (but please only do so if privacy is very
1.27 deraadt 162: urgent, since it is inconvenient) use this <a href=advisories/pgpkey>pgp key</a>.
1.5 deraadt 163:
1.2 deraadt 164: <hr>
1.27 deraadt 165: <a href=index.html><img src=/back.gif border=0 alt=OpenBSD></a>
1.24 deraadt 166: <a href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>www@openbsd.org</a>
167: <br>
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1.1 deraadt 169:
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