linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 1/9] Known exploit detection

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Date:	Fri, 13 Dec 2013 10:50:32 +1100
From:	Ryan Mallon <rmallon@...il.com>
To:	Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>, Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu>,
	vegard.nossum@...cle.com, LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Tommi Rantala <tt.rantala@...il.com>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>,
	"Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@...ssion.com>,
	Andy Lutomirski <luto@...capital.net>,
	Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter@...ll.ch>,
	Alan Cox <alan@...ux.intel.com>,
	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
	Jason Wang <jasowang@...hat.com>,
	"David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
	Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@...cle.com>,
	James Morris <james.l.morris@...cle.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/9] Known exploit detection

On 13/12/13 08:13, Kees Cook wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 11:06 AM, Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu> wrote:
>> On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 05:52:24PM +0100, vegard.nossum@...cle.com wrote:
>>> From: Vegard Nossum <vegard.nossum@...cle.com>
>>>
>>> The idea is simple -- since different kernel versions are vulnerable to
>>> different root exploits, hackers most likely try multiple exploits before
>>> they actually succeed.
> 
> I like this idea. It serves a few purposes, not the least of which is
> very clearly marking in code where we've had problems, regardless of
> the fact that it reports badness to the system owner. And I think
> getting any additional notifications about bad behavior is a nice idea
> too.

Though, if an attacker is running through a series of exploits, and one
eventually succeeds then the first thing to do would be to clean traces
of the _exploit() notifications from the syslog. Since running through a
series of exploits is pretty quick, this can probably all be done before
the sysadmin ever notices.

The _exploit() notifications could also be used to spam the syslogs.
Although they are individually ratelimited, if there are enough
_exploit() markers in the kernel then an annoying person can cycle
through them all to generate large amounts of useless syslog.

~Ryan

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