Case Study: Building a Secure Operating System for Linux
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Administrative Role-Based Access Control on Top of Security Enhanced Linux
Administrative Role-Based Access Control on Top of Security Enhanced Linux Ayla Solomon Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Prerequisite for Honors in Computer Science June 2009 Copyright Ayla Solomon, 2009 Abstract In a time when the Internet is increasingly dangerous and software is increasingly com- plex, properly securing one’s system has become a widespread concern, especially for system administrators. There are a number of ways to secure a Linux system; these methods vary in effectiveness and usability. Regular Linux discretionary access control is suitable for most mundane tasks and is easy to use, but it fails to confine insecure programs that run with administrative powers and is difficult to scale. Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) is an extension to the Linux kernel that provides fine-grained controls for preventing malicious agents from exploiting software vulnerabilities. It can be very effective, but its policy lan- guage is extremely low-level and its paradigm difficult to understand and use. This makes it difficult to map a high-level idea of a security policy to what needs to be done in SELinux, which rules out its use to a vast majority of people with Linux systems, including system administrators, though many attempts have been made to make it more usable. I have designed and partially implemented a system on top of SELinux to implement administrative role-based access control (ARBAC), which is not available on any Linux system. ARBAC is an intuitive, flexible, and scalable security paradigm well suited for user confinement, especially for very large systems with many users. ARBAC’s main advan- tages are not only in its intuitive structure but also its built-in administrator confinement mechanism: its very structure promotes separation of privilege amongst administrators. -
Memory Protection in Embedded Systems Lanfranco Lopriore Dipartimento Di Ingegneria Dell’Informazione, Università Di Pisa, Via G
CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Archivio della Ricerca - Università di Pisa Memory protection in embedded systems Lanfranco Lopriore Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Università di Pisa, via G. Caruso 16, 56126 Pisa, Italy E-mail: [email protected] Abstract — With reference to an embedded system featuring no support for memory manage- ment, we present a model of a protection system based on passwords and keys. At the hardware level, our model takes advantage of a memory protection unit (MPU) interposed between the processor and the complex of the main memory and the input-output devices. The MPU sup- ports both concepts of a protection context and a protection domain. A protection context is a set of access rights for the memory pages; a protection domain is a set of one or more protection contexts. Passwords are associated with protection domains. A process that holds a key match- ing a given password can take advantage of this key to activate the corresponding domain. A small set of protection primitives makes it possible to modify the composition of the domains in a strictly controlled fashion. The proposed protection model is evaluated from a number of salient viewpoints, which include key distribution, review and revocation, the memory requirements for storage of the information concerning protection, and the time necessary for key validation. Keywords: access right; embedded system; protection; revocation. 1. INTRODUCTION We shall refer to a typical embedded system architecture featuring a microprocessor inter- facing both volatile and non-volatile primary memory devices, as well as a variety of input/out- put devices including sensors and actuators. -
Kafl: Hardware-Assisted Feedback Fuzzing for OS Kernels
kAFL: Hardware-Assisted Feedback Fuzzing for OS Kernels Sergej Schumilo, Cornelius Aschermann, and Robert Gawlik, Ruhr-Universität Bochum; Sebastian Schinzel, Münster University of Applied Sciences; Thorsten Holz, Ruhr-Universität Bochum https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity17/technical-sessions/presentation/schumilo This paper is included in the Proceedings of the 26th USENIX Security Symposium August 16–18, 2017 • Vancouver, BC, Canada ISBN 978-1-931971-40-9 Open access to the Proceedings of the 26th USENIX Security Symposium is sponsored by USENIX kAFL: Hardware-Assisted Feedback Fuzzing for OS Kernels Sergej Schumilo Cornelius Aschermann Robert Gawlik Ruhr-Universität Bochum Ruhr-Universität Bochum Ruhr-Universität Bochum Sebastian Schinzel Thorsten Holz Münster University of Applied Sciences Ruhr-Universität Bochum Abstract free vulnerabilities, are known threats for programs run- Many kinds of memory safety vulnerabilities have ning in user mode as well as for the operating system been endangering software systems for decades. (OS) core itself. Past experience has shown that attack- Amongst other approaches, fuzzing is a promising ers typically focus on user mode applications. This is technique to unveil various software faults. Recently, likely because vulnerabilities in user mode programs are feedback-guided fuzzing demonstrated its power, pro- notoriously easier and more reliable to exploit. How- ducing a steady stream of security-critical software bugs. ever, with the appearance of different kinds of exploit Most fuzzing efforts—especially feedback fuzzing—are defense mechanisms – especially in user mode, it has limited to user space components of an operating system become much harder nowadays to exploit known vul- (OS), although bugs in kernel components are more nerabilities. -
Linux OS-Level Security Nikitas Angelinas
Linux OS-Level Security Nikitas Angelinas MSST 2015 Agenda ● SELinux ● SELinux issues ● Audit subsystem ● Audit issues ● Further OS hardening 2 SELinux ● Security-Enhanced Linux ● Is NOT a Linux distribution ● A kernel feature ● A Linux Security Module (LSM) ● security fields in kernel data structures — processes, files, directories, sockets, IPC, and other OS objects ● hooks on all paths from userspace — return a binary predicate: allowed or not allowed (e.g. EACCES) 3 SELinux ● SELinux is a labeling system ● Every process has a label ● Every OS object has a label ● Policy rules control access between processes and objects, based on their labels ● Policy rules are enforced by the kernel ● The objective is to contain misbehaving/compromised userspace applications 4 SELinux policy management application interface userspace open(2) kernel error checks selinuxfs DAC checks cache Allowed? miss? Security Server LSM hook Access Vector Cache (Policy Rules and Access Decision Logic) Yes/No return SELinux 5 SELinux ● Mandatory Access Control ● vs. Discretionary Access Control (file ownership, permissions) ● Labels are of the form user:role:type:level ● e.g. process: /usr/sbin/sshd → system_u:object_r:sshd_exec_t:s0 ● e.g. file: /root/ssh/* → root:object_r:ssh_home_t ● SELinux implements LSM hooks and offers: ● Role-based Access Control ● Type Enforcement ● Multi-Level Security 6 SELinux labels and rules ● ls -Z /usr/sbin/sshd -rwxr-xr-x. root root system_u:object_r:sshd_exec_t:s0 /usr/sbin/sshd ● ls -Z /root/.ssh/id_rsa -rw-------. root root root:object_r:ssh_home_t /root/.ssh/id_rsa ● ls -Z /etc/ssh/sshd_config -rw-------. root root system_u:object_r:etc_t /etc/ssh/sshd_config ● ls -Z /var/run/sshd.pid -rw-------. -
Metro Ethernet Design Guide
Design and Implementation Guide Juniper Networks Metro Ethernet Design Guide August 2016 ii © 2016 Juniper Networks, Inc. Design and Implementation Guide Juniper Networks, Inc. 1133 Innovation Way Sunnyvale, California 94089 USA 408-745-2000 www.juniper.net Copyright © 2016, Juniper Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. © 2016 Juniper Networks, Inc. iii Design and Implementation Guide Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 Using MPLS with Metro Ethernet ........................................................................................... 1 Metro Ethernet Solutions ......................................................................................................... 2 Chapter 2 Metro Ethernet Overview ......................................................................................... 3 Metro Ethernet Service Types ..................................................................................................... 5 Carrier Ethernet Overview........................................................................................................... 5 Carrier Ethernet Certification ................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 3 Architecture Overview .............................................................................................. 7 Juniper Networks Portfolio for Metro Ethernet Networks ......................................................... -
130 Demystifying Arm Trustzone: a Comprehensive Survey
Demystifying Arm TrustZone: A Comprehensive Survey SANDRO PINTO, Centro Algoritmi, Universidade do Minho NUNO SANTOS, INESC-ID, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa The world is undergoing an unprecedented technological transformation, evolving into a state where ubiq- uitous Internet-enabled “things” will be able to generate and share large amounts of security- and privacy- sensitive data. To cope with the security threats that are thus foreseeable, system designers can find in Arm TrustZone hardware technology a most valuable resource. TrustZone is a System-on-Chip and CPU system- wide security solution, available on today’s Arm application processors and present in the new generation Arm microcontrollers, which are expected to dominate the market of smart “things.” Although this technol- ogy has remained relatively underground since its inception in 2004, over the past years, numerous initiatives have significantly advanced the state of the art involving Arm TrustZone. Motivated by this revival ofinter- est, this paper presents an in-depth study of TrustZone technology. We provide a comprehensive survey of relevant work from academia and industry, presenting existing systems into two main areas, namely, Trusted Execution Environments and hardware-assisted virtualization. Furthermore, we analyze the most relevant weaknesses of existing systems and propose new research directions within the realm of tiniest devices and the Internet of Things, which we believe to have potential to yield high-impact contributions in the future. CCS Concepts: • Computer systems organization → Embedded and cyber-physical systems;•Secu- rity and privacy → Systems security; Security in hardware; Software and application security; Additional Key Words and Phrases: TrustZone, security, virtualization, TEE, survey, Arm ACM Reference format: Sandro Pinto and Nuno Santos. -
Security Architecture
COVER STORY RSBAC Architecture of Rule Set Based Access Control (RSBAC) Security Architecture inux security holes typically occur Integrating multiple security models simultaneously in the kernel and in Server programs and S bit tools. LThe best approach would be to detailed logs of any access:The free Rule Set Based Access Control avoid mistakes and update programs immediately if a bug occurs. This is not (RSBAC) security System offers customized protection for a wide range always possible, the next best thing is to of requirements. BY AMON OTT restrict potential damage, and this is where access control systems such as RSBAC come into play [1]. If an attacker exploits the security holes in servers or s bit tools, access to the system should be restricted to a minimum. In this case, even a successful compromise will cause only limited damage, and protective mechanisms can be implemented directly in the operating system kernel. The standard Linux kernel prevents access to various resources such as files, directories or system configurations, but unfortunately the standard mechanisms are fraught with weaknesses: •Poor granularity Ro • Discretionary access control nald Raefle , visipix.com • An all-powerful root user Linux access controls only offer the standard privileges read, write and execute; additionally they only allow distinct privileges to be defined for the owner of a file, the members of a group and all others. Restrictions typically do account used to run that process. kernel a while back, allow a program not apply to the root user. The Thus, an attacker, if fortunate, can launched by root to drop some granularity of these privileges is thus manipulate any files belonging to the privileges, but this is left up to the insufficient for many tasks. -
I. RSBAC Theory
The RSBAC library The RSBAC library Copyright © 2003 Amon Ott, Stanislav Ievlev and Henk Klöpping The RSBAC introduction Amon Ott Stanislav Ievlev Heinrich W. Klöpping The RSBAC introduction by Amon Ott, Stanislav Ievlev, and Heinrich W. Klöpping Audience: This book is intended for use by experienced and skilled Unix professionals who wish to install, configure and use RSBAC. Approach: This book resulted from a project founded on June 28th, 2002 by Amon Ott, Stanislav Ievlev and Henk Klöpping. It provides an introduction to Rule Set Based Access control (RSBAC). If you are new to RSBAC, this book is the place to start reading. It provides an overview of what RSBAC is and how it can be employed. It is aimed at both potential users of RSBAC and programmers that would like to enhance the software by writing their own modules - or even changing the software itself. This book also introduces its companions: The RSBAC cookbook, The RSBAC reference manual, The RSBAC programmers cookbook and The RSBAC programmers reference manual. To learn where the latest version of this book can be downloaded or read please refer to Section 6.2. Sources: Our sources of information were (Open Source) material on the Internet, several books, practical experience of the authors , research and programming work done by the authors and others. We try to give credit where due, but are fallible. We apologize. Caution While every precaution was made in the preparation of this book, we can assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. When you feel we have not given you proper credit or feel we may have violated your rights or when you have suggestions how we may improve our work please notify us immediately so we can take corrective actions. -
Operating Systems & Virtualisation Security Presentation Link
CyBOK Operating Systems & Virtualisation Security Knowledge Area Herbert Bos © Crown Copyright, The National Cyber Security Centre 2020. This information is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. To view this licence, visit http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open- government-licence/. When you use this information under the Open Government Licence, you should include the following attribution: CyBOK Operating Systems & Virtualisation Security Knowledge Area Issue 1.0 © Crown Copyright, The National Cyber Security Centre 2020, licensed under the Open Government Licence http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/. The CyBOK project would like to understand how the CyBOK is being used and its uptake. The project would like organisations using, or intending to use, CyBOK for the purposes of education, training, course development, professional development etc. to contact it at [email protected] to let the project know how they are using CyBOK. 7. Adoption 6. Related areas 5. OS hardening 4. Primitives for Isolation/mediation 3. Principles + models 2. design 1. Threats 0. Intro 0. Introduction Operating systems and VMs are old Much of the groundwork was done in the 60s and 70s Interest in security grew when multiple security domains became important We will see the origin and importance of principles and security primitives Early OSs such as Multics pioneered many of these in a working system Much has stayed the same, much has changed Old days: security mostly focused on isolating (classes of) users from each -
OS Security Memory
OS Security Memory Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands Winter 2016/2017 I Cannot do that for reading/writing memory I Load/store instructions are very frequent in programs I Speed of memory access largely determines the speed of many programs I System calls are expensive I A load (from cache) can nish in a few cycles I A system call has some hundred cycles overhead I OS still needs control over memory access of processes! Memory access I So far, all access to resources was handled through le-access permissions I Requesting a resource (le) is done through syscalls OS Security Memory2 I A load (from cache) can nish in a few cycles I A system call has some hundred cycles overhead I OS still needs control over memory access of processes! Memory access I So far, all access to resources was handled through le-access permissions I Requesting a resource (le) is done through syscalls I Cannot do that for reading/writing memory I Load/store instructions are very frequent in programs I Speed of memory access largely determines the speed of many programs I System calls are expensive OS Security Memory2 I OS still needs control over memory access of processes! Memory access I So far, all access to resources was handled through le-access permissions I Requesting a resource (le) is done through syscalls I Cannot do that for reading/writing memory I Load/store instructions are very frequent in programs I Speed of memory access largely determines the speed of many programs I System calls are expensive I A load (from cache) can nish in a few -
Security-Enhanced Linux
Information Assurance Research Group Security-Enhanced Linux Peter Loscocco Information Assurance Research Group National Security Agency [email protected] 4/6/01 1 Information Assurance Research Group Outline Importance of secure operating systems Security-enhanced Linux Related work Conclusions 4/6/01 2 Information Assurance Research Group Importance of Secure OS Growing need for security Flawed assumption of security OS is correct level to provide security Key feature: Mandatory Access Control (MAC) • Access to objects controlled by policy administrator • Users/processes may not change access policy • All accesses are mediated w.r.t. the policy 4/6/01 3 Information Assurance Research Group Mandatory Security: Key Gains Provides critical support for application security • Protects against tampering with secured application • Protects against bypass of secured application • Enables assured pipelines Provides strong separation of applications • Permits safe execution of untrustworthy applications • Limits scope of potential damage due to penetration of applications • Functional uses: isolated testing environments or insulated development environments Protects information from • Legitimate users with limited authorization • Authorized users unwittingly using malicious applications 4/6/01 4 Information Assurance Research Group Why not just DAC? Decisions are only based on user identity and ownership Each user has complete discretion over his objects Only two major categories of users: user and superuser Many system services and privileged -
Paravirtualizing Linux in a Real-Time Hypervisor
Paravirtualizing Linux in a real-time hypervisor Vincent Legout and Matthieu Lemerre CEA, LIST, Embedded Real Time Systems Laboratory Point courrier 172, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, FRANCE {vincent.legout,matthieu.lemerre}@cea.fr ABSTRACT applications written for a fully-featured operating system This paper describes a new hypervisor built to run Linux in a such as Linux. The Anaxagoros design prevent non real- virtual machine. This hypervisor is built inside Anaxagoros, time tasks to interfere with real-time tasks, thus providing a real-time microkernel designed to execute safely hard real- the security foundation to build a hypervisor to run existing time and non real-time tasks. This allows the execution of non real-time applications. This allows current applications hard real-time tasks in parallel with Linux virtual machines to run on Anaxagoros systems without any porting effort, without interfering with the execution of the real-time tasks. opening the access to a wide range of applications. We implemented this hypervisor and compared perfor- Furthermore, modern computers are powerful enough to mances with other virtualization techniques. Our hypervisor use virtualization, even embedded processors. Virtualiza- does not yet provide high performance but gives correct re- tion has become a trendy topic of computer science, with sults and we believe the design is solid enough to guarantee its advantages like scalability or security. Thus we believe solid performances with its future implementation. that building a real-time system with guaranteed real-time performances and dense non real-time tasks is an important topic for the future of real-time systems.