linux-kernel - Re: [RESEND][RFC PATCH 0/6] Fork brute force attack mitigation (fbfam)

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Date:   Thu, 10 Sep 2020 22:39:04 +0200
From:   Jann Horn <jannh@...gle.com>
To:     Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org>, John Wood <john.wood@....com>
Cc:     Kernel Hardening <kernel-hardening@...ts.openwall.com>,
        Matthew Wilcox <willy@...radead.org>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        Alexander Viro <viro@...iv.linux.org.uk>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Juri Lelli <juri.lelli@...hat.com>,
        Vincent Guittot <vincent.guittot@...aro.org>,
        Dietmar Eggemann <dietmar.eggemann@....com>,
        Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
        Ben Segall <bsegall@...gle.com>, Mel Gorman <mgorman@...e.de>,
        Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@...nel.org>,
        Iurii Zaikin <yzaikin@...gle.com>,
        James Morris <jmorris@...ei.org>,
        "Serge E. Hallyn" <serge@...lyn.com>, linux-doc@...r.kernel.org,
        kernel list <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        linux-fsdevel <linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org>,
        linux-security-module <linux-security-module@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [RESEND][RFC PATCH 0/6] Fork brute force attack mitigation (fbfam)

On Thu, Sep 10, 2020 at 10:21 PM Kees Cook <keescook@...omium.org> wrote:
> [kees: re-sending this series on behalf of John Wood <john.wood@....com>
> also visible at https://github.com/johwood/linux fbfam]
[...]
> The goal of this patch serie is to detect and mitigate a fork brute force
> attack.
>
> Attacks with the purpose to break ASLR or bypass canaries traditionaly use
> some level of brute force with the help of the fork system call. This is
> possible since when creating a new process using fork its memory contents
> are the same as those of the parent process (the process that called the
> fork system call). So, the attacker can test the memory infinite times to
> find the correct memory values or the correct memory addresses without
> worrying about crashing the application.

For the next version of this patchset, you may want to clarify that
this is intended to stop brute force attacks *against vulnerable
userspace processes* that fork off worker processes. I was halfway
through the patch series before I realized that.