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1.1       deraadt     1: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC  "-//IETF//DTD HTML Strict//EN">
                      2: <html>
                      3: <head>
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">
1.45      deraadt    10: <meta name="copyright" content="This document copyright 1997,1998 by OpenBSD.">
1.1       deraadt    11: </head>
                     12:
                     13: <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#23238E">
                     14:
1.77      deraadt    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>
1.75      deraadt    21: <a href=#24>For 2.4 security advisories, please refer here</a>.<br>
1.93      deraadt    22: <a href=#25>For 2.5 security advisories, please refer here</a>.<br>
1.56      deraadt    23: <hr>
                     24:
1.2       deraadt    25: <p>
1.12      deraadt    26: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>OpenBSD Security Views</strong></font></h3>
1.22      deraadt    27:
1.14      deraadt    28: OpenBSD believes in strong security.  Our aspiration is to be NUMBER
1.22      deraadt    29: ONE in the industry for security (if we are not already there).  Our
                     30: open software development model permits us to take a more
                     31: uncompromising view towards increased security than Sun, SGI, IBM, HP,
                     32: or other vendors are able to.  We can make changes the vendors would
1.27      deraadt    33: not make.  Also, since OpenBSD is exported with <a href=crypto.html>
1.45      deraadt    34: cryptography</a>, we are able to take cryptographic approaches towards
                     35: fixing security problems.<p>
1.18      deraadt    36:
1.45      deraadt    37: Like many readers of the
1.13      deraadt    38: <a href=http://www.geek-girl.com/bugtraq/index.html>
1.18      deraadt    39: BUGTRAQ mailing list</a>,
1.45      deraadt    40: we believe in full disclosure of security problems.  Security
                     41: information moves very fast in cracker circles.  On the other hand,
                     42: our experience is that coding and releasing of proper security fixes
                     43: typically requires about an hour of work -- very fast fix turnaround
                     44: is possible.  Thus we think that full disclosure helps the people who
1.22      deraadt    45: really care about security.<p>
1.15      deraadt    46:
1.12      deraadt    47: Our security auditing team typically has between six and twelve
1.45      deraadt    48: members who continue to search for and fix new security holes.  We
                     49: have been auditing since the summer of 1996.  The process we follow to
                     50: increase security is simply a comprehensive file-by-file analysis of
                     51: every critical software component.  Flaws have been found in just
                     52: about every area of the system.  Entire new classes of security
1.80      espie      53: problems have been found during our audit, and often source code
1.45      deraadt    54: which had been audited earlier needs re-auditing with these new flaws
                     55: in mind.  Code often gets audited multiple times, and by multiple
                     56: people with different auditing skills.<p>
1.12      deraadt    57:
1.94      deraadt    58: Some members of our security auditing team worked for Secure Networks,
                     59: the company that made the industry's premier network security scanning
                     60: software package Ballista (Secure Networks got purchased by Network
                     61: Associates, Ballista got renamed to Cybercop Scanner, and well...)
                     62: That company did a lot of security research, and thus fit in well
1.45      deraadt    63: with the OpenBSD stance.  OpenBSD passes Ballista's tests with flying
                     64: colours.<p>
1.31      deraadt    65:
1.34      deraadt    66: Another facet of our security auditing process is its proactiveness.
1.45      deraadt    67: In most cases we have found that the determination of exploitability
                     68: is not an issue.  During our ongoing auditing process we find many
                     69: bugs, and endeavor to fix them even though exploitability is not
                     70: proven.  We fix the bug, and we move on to find other bugs to fix.  We
                     71: have fixed many simple and obvious careless programming errors in code
                     72: and only months later discovered that the problems were in fact
                     73: exploitable.  (Or, more likely someone on
                     74: <a href=http://www.geek-girl.com/bugtraq/index.html>BUGTRAQ</a>
                     75: would report that other operating systems were vulnerable to a `newly
                     76: discovered problem', and then it would be discovered that OpenBSD had
                     77: been fixed in a previous release).  In other cases we have been saved
                     78: from full exploitability of complex step-by-step attacks because we
                     79: had fixed one of the intermediate steps.  An example of where we
1.94      deraadt    80: managed such a success is the lpd advisory that Secure Networks put out.
                     81: <p>
1.29      deraadt    82:
1.45      deraadt    83: Our proactive auditing process has really paid off.  Statements like
1.35      deraadt    84: ``This problem was fixed in OpenBSD about 6 months ago'' have become
1.45      deraadt    85: commonplace in security forums like
                     86: <a href=http://www.geek-girl.com/bugtraq/index.html>BUGTRAQ</a>.<p>
1.35      deraadt    87:
1.45      deraadt    88: The most intense part of our security auditing happened immediately
1.80      espie      89: before the OpenBSD 2.0 release and during the 2.0-&gt;2.1 transition,
1.45      deraadt    90: over the last third of 1996 and first half of 1997.  Thousands (yes,
                     91: thousands) of security issues were fixed rapidly over this year-long
                     92: period; bugs like the standard buffer overflows, protocol
                     93: implementation weaknesses, information gathering, and filesystem
                     94: races.  Hence most of the security problems that we encountered were
                     95: fixed before our 2.1 release, and then a far smaller number needed
                     96: fixing for our 2.2 release.  We do not find as many problems anymore,
                     97: it is simply a case of diminishing returns.  Recently the security
                     98: problems we find and fix tend to be significantly more obscure or
                     99: complicated.  Still we will persist for a number of reasons:<p>
1.36      deraadt   100:
1.35      deraadt   101: <ul>
1.45      deraadt   102: <li>Occasionally we find a simple problem we missed earlier. Doh!
1.35      deraadt   103: <li>Security is like an arms race; the best attackers will continue
1.45      deraadt   104:        to search for more complicated exploits, so we will too.
                    105: <li>Finding and fixing subtle flaws in complicated software is
                    106:        a lot of fun.
1.35      deraadt   107: </ul>
1.15      deraadt   108:
1.14      deraadt   109: The auditing process is not over yet, and as you can see we continue
1.28      deraadt   110: to find and fix new security flaws.<p>
1.12      deraadt   111:
1.93      deraadt   112: <a name=25></a>
                    113: <p>
                    114: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>OpenBSD 2.5 Security Advisories</strong></font></h3>
                    115: These are the OpenBSD 2.5 advisories -- all these problems are solved
                    116: in <a href=anoncvs.html>OpenBSD current</a>.  Obviously, all the
                    117: OpenBSD 2.4 advisories listed below are fixed in OpenBSD 2.5.
                    118:
                    119: <ul>
1.95    ! deraadt   120: <ul>
        !           121: <li><a href=errata.html#chflags>Jul 30, 1999: Do not permit regular
        !           122:        users to chflags(2) or fchflags(2) on character or block devices
        !           123:        which they may currently be the owner of (patch included).</a>
        !           124: <li><a href=errata.html#nroff>Jul 27, 1999: Cause groff(1) to be invoked
        !           125:        with the -S flag, when called by nroff(1) (patch included).</a>
1.93      deraadt   126: </ul>
                    127:
1.75      deraadt   128: <a name=24></a>
                    129: <p>
                    130: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>OpenBSD 2.4 Security Advisories</strong></font></h3>
                    131: These are the OpenBSD 2.4 advisories -- all these problems are solved
                    132: in <a href=anoncvs.html>OpenBSD current</a>.  Obviously, all the
                    133: OpenBSD 2.3 advisories listed below are fixed in OpenBSD 2.4.
                    134:
                    135: <ul>
1.92      deraadt   136: <li><a href=errata24.html#poll>Mar 22, 1999: The nfds argument for poll(2) needs
1.91      deraadt   137:        to be constrained, to avoid kvm starvation (patch included).</a>
1.92      deraadt   138: <li><a href=errata24.html#tss>Mar 21, 1999: A change in TSS handling stops
1.91      deraadt   139:        another kernel crash case caused by the <strong>crashme</strong>
                    140:        program (patch included).</a>
1.92      deraadt   141: <li><a href=errata24.html#nlink>Feb 25, 1999: An unbounded increment on the
1.90      deraadt   142:        nlink value in FFS and EXT2FS filesystems can cause a system crash.
1.89      deraadt   143:        (patch included).</a>
1.92      deraadt   144: <li><a href=errata24.html#ping>Feb 23, 1999: Yet another buffer overflow
1.88      deraadt   145:        existed in ping(8). (patch included).</a>
1.92      deraadt   146: <li><a href=errata24.html#ipqrace>Feb 19, 1999: ipintr() had a race in use of
1.87      deraadt   147:        the ipq, which could permit an attacker to cause a crash.
                    148:        (patch included).</a>
1.92      deraadt   149: <li><a href=errata24.html#accept>Feb 17, 1999: A race condition in the
1.86      deraadt   150:        kernel between accept(2) and select(2) could permit an attacker
                    151:        to hang sockets from remote.
                    152:        (patch included).</a>
1.92      deraadt   153: <li><a href=errata24.html#maxqueue>Feb 17, 1999: IP fragment assembly can
1.85      deraadt   154:        bog the machine excessively and cause problems.
                    155:        (patch included).</a>
1.92      deraadt   156: <li><a href=errata24.html#trctrap>Feb 12, 1999: i386 T_TRCTRAP handling and
1.84      deraadt   157:        DDB interacted to possibly cause a crash.
                    158:        (patch included).</a>
1.92      deraadt   159: <li><a href=errata24.html#rst>Feb 11, 1999: TCP/IP RST handling was sloppy.
1.83      deraadt   160:        (patch included).</a>
1.92      deraadt   161: <li><a href=errata24.html#bootpd>Nov 27, 1998: There is a remotely exploitable
1.81      deraadt   162:        problem in bootpd(8). (patch included).</a>
1.92      deraadt   163: <li><a href=errata24.html#termcap>Nov 19, 1998: There is a possibly locally
1.82      deraadt   164:        exploitable problem relating to environment variables in termcap
                    165:        and curses. (patch included).</a>
1.92      deraadt   166: <li><a href=errata24.html#tcpfix>Nov 13, 1998: There is a remote machine lockup
1.78      deraadt   167:        bug in the TCP decoding kernel. (patch included).</a>
1.75      deraadt   168: </ul>
                    169:
1.58      deraadt   170: <a name=23></a>
1.12      deraadt   171: <p>
1.52      deraadt   172: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>OpenBSD 2.3 Security Advisories</strong></font></h3>
1.73      deraadt   173: These are the OpenBSD 2.3 advisories -- all these problems are solved
                    174: in <a href=anoncvs.html>OpenBSD current</a>.  Obviously, all the
                    175: OpenBSD 2.2 advisories listed below are fixed in OpenBSD 2.3.
1.53      matthieu  176:
                    177: <ul>
1.81      deraadt   178: <li><a href=errata23.html#bootpd>Nov 27, 1998: There is a remotely exploitable
                    179:        problem in bootpd(8). (patch included).</a>
1.78      deraadt   180: <li><a href=errata23.html#tcpfix>Nov 13, 1998: There is a remote machine lockup
                    181:        bug in the TCP decoding kernel. (patch included).</a>
1.76      aaron     182: <li><a href=errata23.html#fdalloc>Jul  2, 1998: setuid and setgid processes
1.72      deraadt   183:        should not be executed with fd slots 0, 1, or 2 free.
                    184:        (patch included).</a>
1.79      deraadt   185: <li><a href=errata23.html#resolver>August 31, 1998: A benign looking resolver buffer overflow bug was re-introduced accidentally (patches included).</a>
1.76      aaron     186: <li><a href=errata23.html#xlib>June 6, 1998: Further problems with the X
1.71      deraadt   187:        libraries (patches included).</a>
1.76      aaron     188: <li><a href=errata23.html#pctr>June  4, 1998: on non-Intel i386 machines, any user
1.72      deraadt   189:        can use pctr(4) to crash the machine.</a>
1.76      aaron     190: <li><a href=errata23.html#kill>May 17, 1998: kill(2) of setuid/setgid target
1.66      deraadt   191:        processes too permissive (4th revision patch included).</a>
1.76      aaron     192: <li><a href=errata23.html#immutable>May 11, 1998: mmap() permits partial bypassing
1.60      deraadt   193:        of immutable and append-only file flags. (patch included).</a>
1.76      aaron     194: <li><a href=errata23.html#xterm-xaw>May  1, 1998: Buffer overflow in xterm and Xaw
1.58      deraadt   195:        (CERT advisory VB-98.04) (patch included).</a>
1.76      aaron     196: <li><a href=errata23.html#ipsec>May  5, 1998: Incorrect handling of IPSEC packets
1.59      deraadt   197:        if IPSEC is enabled (patch included).</a>
1.53      matthieu  198: </ul>
1.9       deraadt   199:
1.58      deraadt   200: <a name=22></a>
1.9       deraadt   201: <p>
1.12      deraadt   202: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>OpenBSD 2.2 Security Advisories</strong></font></h3>
1.45      deraadt   203: These are the OpenBSD 2.2 advisories.  All these problems are solved
1.55      deraadt   204: in <a href=23.html>OpenBSD 2.3</a>.  Some of these problems
1.45      deraadt   205: still exist in other operating systems.  (The supplied patches are for
                    206: OpenBSD 2.2; they may or may not work on OpenBSD 2.1).
1.9       deraadt   207:
                    208: <ul>
1.72      deraadt   209: <li><a href=errata22.html#ipsec>May  5, 1998: Incorrect handling of IPSEC
                    210:        packets if IPSEC is enabled (patch included).</a>
                    211: <li><a href=errata22.html#xterm-xaw>May  1, 1998: Buffer overflow in xterm
                    212:        and Xaw (CERT advisory VB-98.04) (patch included).</a>
                    213: <li><a href=errata22.html#uucpd>Apr 22, 1998: Buffer overflow in uucpd
                    214:        (patch included).</a>
                    215: <li><a href=errata22.html#rmjob>Apr 22, 1998: Buffer mismanagement in lprm
                    216:        (patch included).</a>
                    217: <li><a href=errata22.html#ping>Mar 31, 1998: Overflow in ping -R (patch included).</a>
                    218: <li><a href=errata22.html#named>Mar 30, 1998: Overflow in named fake-iquery
1.59      deraadt   219:        (patch included).</a>
1.72      deraadt   220: <li><a href=errata22.html#mountd>Mar  2, 1998: Accidental NFS filesystem
                    221:        export (patch included).</a>
                    222: <li><a href=advisories/mmap>Feb 26, 1998: Read-write mmap() flaw.</a>
                    223:        Revision 3 of the patch is available <a href=errata22.html#mmap>here</a>
1.59      deraadt   224: <li><a href=advisories/sourceroute>Feb 19, 1998: Sourcerouted Packet
                    225:        Acceptance.</a>
1.50      deraadt   226:        A patch is available <a href=errata22.html#sourceroute>here</a>.
1.72      deraadt   227: <li><a href=errata22.html#ruserok>Feb 13, 1998: Setuid coredump & Ruserok()
                    228:        flaw (patch included).</a>
                    229: <li><a href=errata22.html#ldso>Feb  9, 1998: MIPS ld.so flaw (patch included).</a>
                    230: <li><a href=errata22.html#f00f>Dec 10, 1997: Intel P5 f00f lockup
1.59      deraadt   231:        (patch included).</a>
1.1       deraadt   232: </ul>
                    233:
1.58      deraadt   234: <a name=21></a>
1.21      deraadt   235: <p>
1.52      deraadt   236: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>OpenBSD 2.1 Security Advisories</strong></font></h3>
                    237: These are the OpenBSD 2.1 advisories.  All these problems are solved
                    238: in <a href=22.html>OpenBSD 2.2</a>.  Some of these problems still
                    239: exist in other operating systems.  (If you are running OpenBSD 2.1, we
                    240: would strongly recommend an upgrade to the newest release, as this
                    241: patch list only attempts at fixing the most important security
                    242: problems.  In particular, OpenBSD 2.2 fixes numerous localhost
                    243: security problems.  Many of those problems were solved in ways which
                    244: make it hard for us to provide patches).
                    245:
                    246: <ul>
1.72      deraadt   247: <li><a href=advisories/signals>Sep 15, 1997: Deviant Signals (patch included)</a>
1.59      deraadt   248: <li><a href=advisories/rfork>Aug  2, 1997: Rfork() system call flaw
                    249:        (patch included)</a>
                    250: <li><a href=advisories/procfs>Jun 24, 1997: Procfs flaws (patch included)</a>
1.52      deraadt   251: </ul>
1.51      deraadt   252:
                    253: <p>
1.21      deraadt   254: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>Watching our Security Changes</strong></font></h3>
                    255: Since we take a proactive stance with security, we are continually
                    256: finding and fixing new security problems.  Not all of these problems
1.80      espie     257: get widely reported because (as stated earlier) many of them are not
1.45      deraadt   258: confirmed to be exploitable; many simple bugs we fix do turn out to
                    259: have security consequences we could not predict.  We do not have the
                    260: time resources to make these changes available in the above format.<p>
1.21      deraadt   261:
                    262: Thus there are usually minor security fixes in the current source code
                    263: beyond the previous major OpenBSD release.  We make a limited
1.45      deraadt   264: guarantee that these problems are of minimal impact and unproven
1.44      ian       265: exploitability.  If we discover that a problem definitely matters for
1.45      deraadt   266: security, patches will show up here <strong>VERY</strong> quickly.<p>
1.21      deraadt   267:
1.45      deraadt   268: People who are really concerned with security can do a number of
                    269: things:<p>
1.21      deraadt   270:
                    271: <ul>
                    272: <li>If you understand security issues, watch our
1.27      deraadt   273:        <a href=mail.html>source-changes mailing list</a> and keep an
1.23      deraadt   274:        eye out for things which appear security related.  Since
1.21      deraadt   275:        exploitability is not proven for many of the fixes we make,
                    276:        do not expect the relevant commit message to say "SECURITY FIX!".
                    277:        If a problem is proven and serious, a patch will be available
                    278:        here very shortly after.
                    279: <li>Track our current source code tree, and teach yourself how to do a
1.29      deraadt   280:        complete system build from time to time (read /usr/src/Makefile
                    281:        carefully).  Users can make the assumption that the current
                    282:        source tree always has stronger security than the previous release.
1.45      deraadt   283:        However, building your own system from source code is not trivial;
                    284:        it is nearly 300MB of source code, and problems do occur as we
                    285:        transition between major releases.
1.29      deraadt   286: <li>Install a binary <a href=snapshots.html>snapshot</a> for your
1.80      espie     287:        architecture, which are made available fairly often.  For
1.29      deraadt   288:        instance, an i386 snapshot is typically made available weekly.
1.21      deraadt   289: </ul>
                    290:
1.9       deraadt   291: <p>
1.12      deraadt   292: <h3><font color=#e00000><strong>Other Resources</strong></font></h3>
1.3       deraadt   293:
1.5       deraadt   294: <p> If you find a new security problem, you can mail it to
1.6       deraadt   295: <a href=mailto:deraadt@openbsd.org>deraadt@openbsd.org</a>.
1.7       deraadt   296: <br>
1.5       deraadt   297: If you wish to PGP encode it (but please only do so if privacy is very
1.27      deraadt   298: urgent, since it is inconvenient) use this <a href=advisories/pgpkey>pgp key</a>.
1.5       deraadt   299:
1.2       deraadt   300: <hr>
1.68      pauls     301: <a href=index.html><img height=24 width=24 src=back.gif border=0 alt=OpenBSD></a>
1.24      deraadt   302: <a href=mailto:www@openbsd.org>www@openbsd.org</a>
                    303: <br>
1.95    ! deraadt   304: <small>$OpenBSD: security.html,v 1.94 1999/04/20 08:23:32 deraadt Exp $</small>
1.1       deraadt   305:
1.24      deraadt   306: </body>
                    307: </html>