linux-kernel - Re: [RFC] Second attempt at kernel secure boot support

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <20121107145518.GB30662@srcf.ucam.org>
Date:	Wed, 7 Nov 2012 14:55:19 +0000
From:	Matthew Garrett <mjg59@...f.ucam.org>
To:	Olivier Galibert <galibert@...ox.com>
Cc:	Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
	Florian Weimer <fw@...eb.enyo.de>,
	Chris Friesen <chris.friesen@...band.com>,
	"Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>,
	James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@...senpartnership.com>,
	Pavel Machek <pavel@....cz>,
	Eric Paris <eparis@...isplace.org>,
	Jiri Kosina <jkosina@...e.cz>, Oliver Neukum <oneukum@...e.de>,
	Josh Boyer <jwboyer@...il.com>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-security-module@...r.kernel.org, linux-efi@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC] Second attempt at kernel secure boot support

On Wed, Nov 07, 2012 at 09:19:35AM +0100, Olivier Galibert wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 11:47 PM, Matthew Garrett <mjg59@...f.ucam.org>wrote:
> 
> > Sure, and scripts run as root can wipe your files too. That's really not
> > what this is all about.
> 
> What it is about then? What is secure boot supposed to do for the owner of
> the computer in a linux context?  I've not been able to understand it
> through this discussion.

It provides a chain of trust that allows you to ensure that a platform 
boots a trusted kernel. That's a pre-requisite for implementing any kind 
of fully trusted platform, but it's not sufficient in itself. One of 
those additional requirements is ensuring that the kernel *stays* 
trusted - in the past an attacker could just replace the kernel on disk 
and so there was little incentive to engage in more subtle attacks, but 
now that's impossible we need to care about them.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59@...f.ucam.org
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/