Re: [RFC] capabilities: Ambient capabilities

From: Kees Cook
Date: Fri Mar 13 2015 - 15:54:20 EST


On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 12:03 PM, Andy Lutomirski <luto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 11:52 AM, Kees Cook <keescook@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> All this said, almost half of the capabilities, if passed to flawed
>> children with attacker controlled execution, can be elevated to full
>> root privileges pretty easily[1], so I think any documentation around
>> this feature should include some pretty dire warnings about using
>> this.
>
> That's a good point. I'll make sure to document that.
>
> It's worth noting that, for many applications, that list is
> overstated. For example, many of the suggested privilege escalations
> don't work if you're in a sufficiently restrictive mount namespace.
>
> For my own use, I plan on adding only CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE and
> CAP_NET_RAW to pA, and I'll be layering seccomp on top to the extent
> possible.

Right, keeping software authors aware of the fact that their efforts
for attack surface reducing may need additional confinement beyond
just the capability reduction.

-Kees

>
> --Andy
>
>>
>> -Kees
>>
>> [1] https://forums.grsecurity.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2522
>>
>> --
>> Kees Cook
>> Chrome OS Security
>
>
>
> --
> Andy Lutomirski
> AMA Capital Management, LLC



--
Kees Cook
Chrome OS Security
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