linux-kernel - Re: [malware-list] scanner interface proposal was: [TALPA] Intro to a linux interface for on access scanning

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Message-Id: <20080818155925.DC73A376469@pmx1.sophos.com>
Date:	Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:58:23 +0100
From:	tvrtko.ursulin@...hos.com
To:	Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Cc:	Arjan van de Ven <arjan@...radead.org>,
	Adrian Bunk <bunk@...nel.org>, capibara@...all.nl,
	Casey Schaufler <casey@...aufler-ca.com>, davecb@....com,
	david@...g.hm, linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	linux-security-module@...r.kernel.org,
	malware-list@...ts.printk.net,
	malware-list-bounces@...sg.printk.net,
	Mihai Don??u <mdontu@...defender.com>,
	Peter Dolding <oiaohm@...il.com>, Pavel Machek <pavel@...e.cz>,
	rmeijer@...all.nl, Theodore Tso <tytso@....edu>
Subject: Re: [malware-list] scanner interface proposal was: [TALPA] Intro	to a linux
 interface for on access scanning

Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk> wrote on 18/08/2008 16:31:48:

> > Huh? I was never advocating re-scan after each modification and I even 

> > explicitly said it does not make sense for AV not only for performance 
but 
> > because it will be useless most of the time. I thought sending out 
> > modified notification on close makes sense because it is a natural 
point, 
> > unless someone is trying to subvert which is out of scope. Other have 
> > suggested time delay and lumping up.
> 
> You need a bit more than close I imagine, otherwise I can simply keep 
the
> file open forever. There are lots of cases where that would be natural
> behaviour - eg if I was to attack some kind of web forum and insert a
> windows worm into the forum which was database backed the file would
> probably never be closed. That seems to be one of the more common attack
> vectors nowdays.

Yes, I agree that modification notifications are needed in some cases.
 
> > Also, just to double-check, you don't think AV scanning would read the 

> > whole file on every write?
> 
> So you need the system to accumulate some kind of complete in memory set
> of 'dirty' range lists on all I/O ? That is going to have pretty bad
> performance impacts and serialization.

No, I was just saying scanning is pretty smart, it's not some brute force 
method of scan all data that is there. It has a file type detection and 
what and how to scan is determined by that. If a file does not resemble 
any file type I don't think it gets scanned. For example take couple of 
gigabytes of zeros and try to scan that with some products. I don't think 
they will try to read the whole file.

--
Tvrtko A. Ursulin
Senior Software Engineer, Sophos

"Views and opinions expressed in this email are strictly those of the 
author.
 The contents has not been reviewed or approved by Sophos."
 

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