full-disclosure - Re: VNC viewers: Clipboard of host automatically sent to remote machine

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Message-id: <4F1F35AC.5232.B11DB7B@nick.virus-l.demon.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:50:20 +1300
From: Nick FitzGerald <nick@...us-l.demon.co.uk>
To: full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk
Subject: Re: VNC viewers: Clipboard of host automatically
 sent to remote machine

Ben Bucksch wrote:

> Even then, that is not sufficient, as explained in length.

No -- what you "explained in length" _and_ seem impervious to 
understanding, despite a couple of respondents explaining it quite 
clearly, is that you have chosen to perform ongoing "sensitive" work in 
an environment where doing so is, at best, represents a highly 
questionable security stance.

_Part_ of what contributes to that questionability is your choice to 
more-or-less continuously run an application that you should always 
have known leaks access to the clipboard of what you oddly choose to 
describe as a "trusted desktop" (odd, because you should know that 
exposing the host clipboard to the client is common -- in fact, 
probably the standard default -- functionality of VNC clients).

That your chosen/preferred/whatever VNC client does not allow you to 
turn off, or otherwise modify or monitor this functionality is not a 
security vulnerability or bug, as you seem intent on portraying it.  It 
may be an undesirable feature (or, more accurately, lack of a feature) 
but don't you have other VNC clients to choose from?  Must you use this 
particular VNC client?  If so and this method of working is so critical 
to you, should you not choose a different platform for your "trusted 
desktop" and run a more suitably configurable VNC client?  Or, if your 
sensitive work is really that sensitive, should you not invest in a 
second machine for remotely monitoring/interacting with the the 
untrusted, sandboxed applications you need to run, so that they really 
are securely separated (can we all say "air gap"?) from your more 
"sensitive" operations?  It would not have to be a very heavy-duty 
machine -- a very low-end netbook style machine, or possibly even a 
cheap tablet-style device may more than suffice...

...

Another part of that questionability is obvious to anyone with nous 
reading this list...

Regards,

Nick FitzGerald

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