Annotation of www/security.html, Revision 1.69
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1.20 deraadt 4: <title>OpenBSD Security</title>
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14:
1.68 pauls 15: <img alt="[OpenBSD]" height=30 width=141 SRC="/images/smalltitle.gif">
1.1 deraadt 16:
1.56 deraadt 17: <hr>
18: <a href=#21>For 2.1 security advisories, please refer here</a>.<br>
19: <a href=#22>For 2.2 security advisories, please refer here</a>.<br>
20: <a href=#23>For 2.3 security advisories, please refer here</a>.<br>
21: <hr>
22:
1.2 deraadt 23: <p>
1.12 deraadt 24: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>OpenBSD Security Views</strong></font></h3>
1.22 deraadt 25:
1.14 deraadt 26: OpenBSD believes in strong security. Our aspiration is to be NUMBER
1.22 deraadt 27: ONE in the industry for security (if we are not already there). Our
28: open software development model permits us to take a more
29: uncompromising view towards increased security than Sun, SGI, IBM, HP,
30: or other vendors are able to. We can make changes the vendors would
1.27 deraadt 31: not make. Also, since OpenBSD is exported with <a href=crypto.html>
1.45 deraadt 32: cryptography</a>, we are able to take cryptographic approaches towards
33: fixing security problems.<p>
1.18 deraadt 34:
1.45 deraadt 35: Like many readers of the
1.13 deraadt 36: <a href=http://www.geek-girl.com/bugtraq/index.html>
1.18 deraadt 37: BUGTRAQ mailing list</a>,
1.45 deraadt 38: we believe in full disclosure of security problems. Security
39: information moves very fast in cracker circles. On the other hand,
40: our experience is that coding and releasing of proper security fixes
41: typically requires about an hour of work -- very fast fix turnaround
42: is possible. Thus we think that full disclosure helps the people who
1.22 deraadt 43: really care about security.<p>
1.15 deraadt 44:
1.12 deraadt 45: Our security auditing team typically has between six and twelve
1.45 deraadt 46: members who continue to search for and fix new security holes. We
47: have been auditing since the summer of 1996. The process we follow to
48: increase security is simply a comprehensive file-by-file analysis of
49: every critical software component. Flaws have been found in just
50: about every area of the system. Entire new classes of security
51: problems have been found during our the audit, and often source code
52: which had been audited earlier needs re-auditing with these new flaws
53: in mind. Code often gets audited multiple times, and by multiple
54: people with different auditing skills.<p>
1.12 deraadt 55:
1.31 deraadt 56: Some members of our security auditing team work for
57: <a href=http://www.secnet.com>Secure Networks</a>, the company that
1.32 deraadt 58: makes the industry's premier network security scanning software
59: package Ballista.
1.31 deraadt 60: This company does a lot of security research, and this fits in well
1.45 deraadt 61: with the OpenBSD stance. OpenBSD passes Ballista's tests with flying
62: colours.<p>
1.31 deraadt 63:
1.34 deraadt 64: Another facet of our security auditing process is its proactiveness.
1.45 deraadt 65: In most cases we have found that the determination of exploitability
66: is not an issue. During our ongoing auditing process we find many
67: bugs, and endeavor to fix them even though exploitability is not
68: proven. We fix the bug, and we move on to find other bugs to fix. We
69: have fixed many simple and obvious careless programming errors in code
70: and only months later discovered that the problems were in fact
71: exploitable. (Or, more likely someone on
72: <a href=http://www.geek-girl.com/bugtraq/index.html>BUGTRAQ</a>
73: would report that other operating systems were vulnerable to a `newly
74: discovered problem', and then it would be discovered that OpenBSD had
75: been fixed in a previous release). In other cases we have been saved
76: from full exploitability of complex step-by-step attacks because we
77: had fixed one of the intermediate steps. An example of where we
78: managed such a success is the
1.30 deraadt 79: <a href=http://www.secnet.com/sni-advisories/sni-19.bsd.lpd.advisory.html>
1.35 deraadt 80: lpd advisory from Secure Networks.</a><p>
1.29 deraadt 81:
1.45 deraadt 82: Our proactive auditing process has really paid off. Statements like
1.35 deraadt 83: ``This problem was fixed in OpenBSD about 6 months ago'' have become
1.45 deraadt 84: commonplace in security forums like
85: <a href=http://www.geek-girl.com/bugtraq/index.html>BUGTRAQ</a>.<p>
1.35 deraadt 86:
1.45 deraadt 87: The most intense part of our security auditing happened immediately
88: before the OpenBSD 2.0 release and during the 2.0->2.1 transition,
89: over the last third of 1996 and first half of 1997. Thousands (yes,
90: thousands) of security issues were fixed rapidly over this year-long
91: period; bugs like the standard buffer overflows, protocol
92: implementation weaknesses, information gathering, and filesystem
93: races. Hence most of the security problems that we encountered were
94: fixed before our 2.1 release, and then a far smaller number needed
95: fixing for our 2.2 release. We do not find as many problems anymore,
96: it is simply a case of diminishing returns. Recently the security
97: problems we find and fix tend to be significantly more obscure or
98: complicated. Still we will persist for a number of reasons:<p>
1.36 deraadt 99:
1.35 deraadt 100: <ul>
1.45 deraadt 101: <li>Occasionally we find a simple problem we missed earlier. Doh!
1.35 deraadt 102: <li>Security is like an arms race; the best attackers will continue
1.45 deraadt 103: to search for more complicated exploits, so we will too.
104: <li>Finding and fixing subtle flaws in complicated software is
105: a lot of fun.
1.35 deraadt 106: </ul>
1.15 deraadt 107:
1.14 deraadt 108: The auditing process is not over yet, and as you can see we continue
1.28 deraadt 109: to find and fix new security flaws.<p>
1.12 deraadt 110:
1.58 deraadt 111: <a name=23></a>
1.12 deraadt 112: <p>
1.52 deraadt 113: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>OpenBSD 2.3 Security Advisories</strong></font></h3>
1.53 matthieu 114: These are the OpenBSD 2.3 advisories. All these problems are solved
115: in <a href=anoncvs.html>OpenBSD current</a>.
116:
117: <ul>
1.66 deraadt 118: <li><a href=errata.html#kill>May 17, 1998: kill(2) of setuid/setgid target
119: processes too permissive (4th revision patch included).</a>
1.65 deraadt 120: <li><a href=errata.html#pctr>June 4, 1998: on non-Intel i386 machines, any user
121: can use pctr(4) to crash the machine.</a>
1.60 deraadt 122: <li><a href=errata.html#immutable>May 11, 1998: mmap() permits partial bypassing
123: of immutable and append-only file flags. (patch included).</a>
1.59 deraadt 124: <li><a href=errata.html#xterm-xaw>May 1, 1998: Buffer overflow in xterm and Xaw
1.58 deraadt 125: (CERT advisory VB-98.04) (patch included).</a>
1.59 deraadt 126: <li><a href=errata.html#ipsec>May 5, 1998: Incorrect handling of IPSEC packets
127: if IPSEC is enabled (patch included).</a>
1.53 matthieu 128: </ul>
1.9 deraadt 129:
1.58 deraadt 130: <a name=22></a>
1.9 deraadt 131: <p>
1.12 deraadt 132: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>OpenBSD 2.2 Security Advisories</strong></font></h3>
1.45 deraadt 133: These are the OpenBSD 2.2 advisories. All these problems are solved
1.55 deraadt 134: in <a href=23.html>OpenBSD 2.3</a>. Some of these problems
1.45 deraadt 135: still exist in other operating systems. (The supplied patches are for
136: OpenBSD 2.2; they may or may not work on OpenBSD 2.1).
1.9 deraadt 137:
138: <ul>
1.59 deraadt 139: <li><a href=errata22.html#f00f>Dec 10, 1997: Intel P5 f00f lockup
140: (patch included).</a>
141: <li><a href=errata22.html#ldso>Feb 9, 1998: MIPS ld.so flaw (patch included).</a>
142: <li><a href=errata22.html#ruserok>Feb 13, 1998: Setuid coredump & Ruserok()
143: flaw (patch included).</a>
144: <li><a href=advisories/sourceroute>Feb 19, 1998: Sourcerouted Packet
145: Acceptance.</a>
1.50 deraadt 146: A patch is available <a href=errata22.html#sourceroute>here</a>.
1.59 deraadt 147: <li><a href=advisories/mmap>Feb 26, 1998: Read-write mmap() flaw.</a>
1.50 deraadt 148: Revision 3 of the patch is available <a href=errata22.html#mmap>here</a>
1.59 deraadt 149: <li><a href=errata22.html#mountd>Mar 2, 1998: Accidental NFS filesystem
150: export (patch included).</a>
151: <li><a href=errata22.html#named>Mar 30, 1998: Overflow in named fake-iquery
152: (patch included).</a>
153: <li><a href=errata22.html#ping>Mar 31, 1998: Overflow in ping -R (patch included).</a>
154: <li><a href=errata22.html#uucpd>Apr 22, 1998: Buffer overflow in uucpd
155: (patch included).</a>
156: <li><a href=errata22.html#rmjob>Apr 22, 1998: Buffer mismanagement in lprm
157: (patch included).</a>
158: <li><a href=errata22.html#xterm-xaw>May 1, 1998: Buffer overflow in xterm
159: and Xaw (CERT advisory VB-98.04) (patch included).</a>
160: <li><a href=errata22.html#ipsec>May 5, 1998: Incorrect handling of IPSEC
161: packets if IPSEC is enabled (patch included).</a>
1.1 deraadt 162: </ul>
163:
1.58 deraadt 164: <a name=21></a>
1.21 deraadt 165: <p>
1.52 deraadt 166: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>OpenBSD 2.1 Security Advisories</strong></font></h3>
167: These are the OpenBSD 2.1 advisories. All these problems are solved
168: in <a href=22.html>OpenBSD 2.2</a>. Some of these problems still
169: exist in other operating systems. (If you are running OpenBSD 2.1, we
170: would strongly recommend an upgrade to the newest release, as this
171: patch list only attempts at fixing the most important security
172: problems. In particular, OpenBSD 2.2 fixes numerous localhost
173: security problems. Many of those problems were solved in ways which
174: make it hard for us to provide patches).
175:
176: <ul>
1.59 deraadt 177: <li><a href=advisories/rfork>Aug 2, 1997: Rfork() system call flaw
178: (patch included)</a>
179: <li><a href=advisories/procfs>Jun 24, 1997: Procfs flaws (patch included)</a>
180: <li><a href=advisories/signals>Sep 15, 1997: Deviant Signals (patch included)</a>
1.52 deraadt 181: </ul>
1.51 deraadt 182:
183: <p>
1.21 deraadt 184: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>Watching our Security Changes</strong></font></h3>
185: Since we take a proactive stance with security, we are continually
186: finding and fixing new security problems. Not all of these problems
1.45 deraadt 187: get widely reported because (as stated earlier); many of them are not
188: confirmed to be exploitable; many simple bugs we fix do turn out to
189: have security consequences we could not predict. We do not have the
190: time resources to make these changes available in the above format.<p>
1.21 deraadt 191:
192: Thus there are usually minor security fixes in the current source code
193: beyond the previous major OpenBSD release. We make a limited
1.45 deraadt 194: guarantee that these problems are of minimal impact and unproven
1.44 ian 195: exploitability. If we discover that a problem definitely matters for
1.45 deraadt 196: security, patches will show up here <strong>VERY</strong> quickly.<p>
1.21 deraadt 197:
1.45 deraadt 198: People who are really concerned with security can do a number of
199: things:<p>
1.21 deraadt 200:
201: <ul>
202: <li>If you understand security issues, watch our
1.27 deraadt 203: <a href=mail.html>source-changes mailing list</a> and keep an
1.23 deraadt 204: eye out for things which appear security related. Since
1.21 deraadt 205: exploitability is not proven for many of the fixes we make,
206: do not expect the relevant commit message to say "SECURITY FIX!".
207: If a problem is proven and serious, a patch will be available
208: here very shortly after.
209: <li>Track our current source code tree, and teach yourself how to do a
1.29 deraadt 210: complete system build from time to time (read /usr/src/Makefile
211: carefully). Users can make the assumption that the current
212: source tree always has stronger security than the previous release.
1.45 deraadt 213: However, building your own system from source code is not trivial;
214: it is nearly 300MB of source code, and problems do occur as we
215: transition between major releases.
1.29 deraadt 216: <li>Install a binary <a href=snapshots.html>snapshot</a> for your
217: architecure, which are made available fairly often. For
218: instance, an i386 snapshot is typically made available weekly.
1.21 deraadt 219: </ul>
220:
1.9 deraadt 221: <p>
1.12 deraadt 222: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>Other Resources</strong></font></h3>
1.3 deraadt 223: Other security advisories that have (in the past) affected OpenBSD can
1.4 deraadt 224: be found at the <a href=http://www.secnet.com/nav1.html>Secure Networks archive</a>.
1.25 deraadt 225: Some OpenBSD audit team members worked with Secure Networks on discovering
226: and solving the problems detailed in some of their security advisories.
1.3 deraadt 227:
1.5 deraadt 228: <p> If you find a new security problem, you can mail it to
1.6 deraadt 229: <a href=mailto:deraadt@openbsd.org>deraadt@openbsd.org</a>.
1.7 deraadt 230: <br>
1.5 deraadt 231: If you wish to PGP encode it (but please only do so if privacy is very
1.27 deraadt 232: urgent, since it is inconvenient) use this <a href=advisories/pgpkey>pgp key</a>.
1.5 deraadt 233:
1.2 deraadt 234: <hr>
1.68 pauls 235: <a href=index.html><img height=24 width=24 src=back.gif border=0 alt=OpenBSD></a>
1.24 deraadt 236: <a href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>www@openbsd.org</a>
237: <br>
1.69 ! deraadt 238: <small>$OpenBSD: security.html,v 1.68 1998/06/19 15:07:05 pauls Exp $</small>
1.1 deraadt 239:
1.24 deraadt 240: </body>
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