Exploiting Software 148
| Exploiting Software: How to Break Code | |
| author | Greg Hoglund, Gary McGraw |
| pages | 512 |
| publisher | Addison Wesley Professional |
| rating | 8 |
| reviewer | Alex Moskalyuk |
| ISBN | 0201786958 |
| summary | Techniques and software used to attack applications. |
What kind of secure are you after?
There are many published titles on the topic of software security are numerous, but most of them follow certain patterns. Building Secure Software by Viega and McGraw was mainly concerned with proper techniques and general software engineering mindset without going into specifics. Then there was Writing Secure Code , by Howard and LeBlanc, which provided concrete examples and showed the "right way" to do secure coding. I heard the title instantly became a required reading at world's largest software corporation. It's currently in its second edition.Secure Programming Cookbook for C/C++ by Viega and Messier, was the hands-on title for those developing C/C++ application with security in mind, as the cookbook recipes generally gave examples of good code, with each chapter providing some general background information on the topic discussed (I reviewed it on Slashdot in September last year).
Just in case you were wondering, the list above wasn't just retrieved by a quick search at Amazon. My Master's degree, completed last summer, dealt with the topic of software security, and those are the titles I've read preparing to write the theoretical part.
From the other side
With the variety of books on how to write secure software, and what techniques to use to make existing software more secure, there was a niche for a book targeted specifically to those who wanted to break software. Black hat or white hat, the network security experts always had titles like Hacking Exposed to give them an idea of what was available in terms of techniques and methodologies used out there. For software security most of the articles and books generally would tell you something in the terms "do not use strcpy(), as it introduces buffer overruns".Great, so I won't use strcpy(), did it make my application more secure? Is it more or less hack-proof? What if I am a tester and required to play with this aspect of the application to ensure the application's security before the product ships? Theoretically hanging out at proper IRC rooms and getting lifetime Phrack and 2600 subscriptions should be enough to cover you at the beginning, however, the learning curve here leaves much to be desired, let alone the fact you will probably be kicked out of the IRC rooms for asking n00b questions. Another path would be to take an expensive training course by someone with a name in the industry, but the price tag for those generally leaves out self-learners and those operating on limited budgets, which adds up to about 99% of software engineers and testers out there.
Exploiting Software to the rescue.
Exploiting Software fills the void that existed in this market. Eight chapters take you through the basics and some advanced techniques of attacking software applications with the purpose of executing arbitrary code supplied by an attacker (you).
The book mainly deals with Windows applications for x86 platforms, and some knowledge of C/C++ and Win32 API is required to go through the example applications. To automate some processes and demonstrate possible attacks the authors use Perl, so knowledge of that would help the reader, too. Some chapters, (e.g. the buffer overflow one) show disassembler output, and while you're not expected to read x86 ASM code as if it were English, knowledge of how the registers work and how the subprocedure calls are handled on this Intel architecture are required. After all, if potential attackers know it, you better familiarize yourself with some low-level code, too.
While discussing various possible attacks, the authors post different attack patterns. The patterns themselves usually appear in gray textboxes and talk about the possible exploit in general terms. After that, a series of attack examples follow, with specific descriptions on what can be done, and how. For example, the attack pattern on page 165 is titled "Leverage executable code in non-executable files." The following attack example is "Executable fonts," and it talks how the font files are generally treated by the Windows systems (they are a special form of DLLs). Thus it's possible to embed some executable code into a font library you're creating, for which the authors provide an example in Microsoft Visual Studio.
What's cool is that all the attack patterns are listed in a separate table of contents (alas, not on the Web site table of contents, which just lists the chapters and subchapters), so you can browse to the attack pattern you decide to learn about, read some general info about it and then study specific examples. The examples themselves are not in the table of contents, which I think is a mistake, as it would make searching for possible patterns much easier. After all, how are you supposed to know that "Informix database file system" (p. 189) is under "Relative path traversal" pattern? Well, unless you know specifically that the line http://[Informix database host]/ifx/?LO=../../../etc/ is the one discussed in the example, you would have to either go through the index hoping no omissions were made, or read the chapter in its entirety.
One of the best chapters of the book, Reverse Engineering and Program Understanding, which provides a good introduction into techniques used throughout the book, is available online from Addison Wesley. By having a free chapter you already have 1/8th of the book, but don't think that the low number of chapters makes this 512-page title an introductory book.
Target Audience
Looks like there are two major audiences and reading patterns for this book: those wanting to fix their systems ASAP and thus using Exploiting Software as a reference, and those using it as a text book to learn about security. I've discussed the organization of the book above, and the reference types will probably be more interested in patterns and examples. For a casual reader (although casual readers wouldn't generally pick up a title with C++, Perl, ASM and hex dumps spread around the chapters) this is a book with great educational value, from two authors who have discovered numerous security vulnerabilities themselves.
Exploiting Software is not an easy title to read. Addison-Wesley shipped me the manuscript copy a month before it hit the bookshelves in its final version, and I found myself going through about two pages an hour. The authors bring up sometimes unfamiliar Win32 APIs and occasionally use ready-made tools available on the Web, so generally I found myself visiting MSDN and Google a lot to read through available documentation and download the latest version of the tools used. The book doesn't come with a CD. Some of the stuff, like inserting a malicious BGP packet to exploit a Cisco router (p. 281) is not really testable at home, and I have some reservations about verifying the example with my employer's routers.
The book is probably apt for 2nd or 3rd year computer science students and above. Besides the variety of languages that I mentioned above, you need to be familiar with the basics of Intel architecture, and generally be fluent with terminology like "buffer," "stack," "syscall," "rootkit," etc., as this is not an "Introduction to..." title. From my experience, you probably won't read it from page 1 to page 512 understanding everything perfectly, but for anyone interested in security and those making a career in software development it looks like a bookshelf must-have.
I interviewed Gary McGraw on the current state of software security, the relevance of the topic to the issues beyond C/C++ and improper buffer usage, and future directions in security. Network World magazine also ran an interview with the McGraw in which he talks about the reception of the book at the RSA Conference, whether the economics is right to invest in building secure systems, and whether his book does more harm by providing a compendium of known exploits.
Alex has written numerous reviews of other software and security titles. You can read more of his opinions at his Web site. You can purchase Exploiting Software: How to Break Code from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
But does it cover... (Score:5, Funny)
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
-- Douglas Adams
Re:But does it cover... (Score:5, Insightful)
Writing bulletproof software is TEDIOUS. You still have to verify everything, and still somebody's going to find the one thing you missed and exploit the hell out of it...
Writing is bad enough, testing is worse (Score:5, Informative)
The company I work for makes software for wafer fabrication. If the software fails, no one dies but millions of dollars of materials and time can be lost: we spend a lot of time testing and retesting and verifying our tests and going over scenarios to make sure we get it right. Event with all that, over the last couple of years we've logged over 600+ defects of various types. All the way from a misspelled word on an error message to miss-processed data to crashes. Most of those errors are detected in house and the customer doesn't see them: but I would guess we get 4 to 8 defects reported from customers every month with most being minor but a few are so egregiously bad that should have been impossible for that to make it through testing. But even a small error can cost tens of thousands of dollars or more in losses so no bug is a good bug.
Most other places I've worked have testing in name only. The code is compiled and run for a few seconds: some edit boxes are typed into and the mouse is wiggled around and that's it.
If architects make buildings like programmers write code then every woodpecker that comes along destroys civilization.
Re:Writing is bad enough, testing is worse (Score:5, Insightful)
Little things can make a big difference too. Let me give you a hypothetical; Lets say the AIX standard C library strlen() tests its input to make sure it's not a NULL pointer prior to testing the string. Lets further say that the Gnu C library doesn't make this test. Recompiling your AUX application on Linux would potentially introduce crashes whenever your application encrounters a strlen.
While the above was a hypothetical situation, I have uncovered a good many memory overflows and leaks simply by compiling and running an application on a different flavor of UNIX than it was originally written for. Having safe underlying library calls is nice, but it also introduces the possibility that actual errors will go unnoticed for a longer period of time.
I'm pretty well convinced that in a situation where the need for security is high (Say, for example, an OS kernel) documented testing of every single function that makes up the software is a necessity.
Re:Writing is bad enough, testing is worse (Score:2)
Re:Writing is bad enough, testing is worse (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Writing is bad enough, testing is worse (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Writing is bad enough, testing is worse (Score:2)
Isn't the solution to have libraries that are safe, spotting and handling many types of errors, but that log those errors somewhere? That way you get an application that doesn't crash unnecessarily, but you also get early and specific warning of bugs. Of course, they can also test for conditions they can't handle, and stop then and there. Assertions, in o
Re:Writing is bad enough, testing is worse (Score:4, Interesting)
And the architects' answer would be to woodpecker-proof every stick of wood???
If you need to test every case, check every return code, etc, etc, there is something very bad, very fundamentally bad, with the design of the whole mess.
With no testing or checking whatever in the program, it should be impossible to create a disaster all out of proportion to the cause.
Re:Writing is bad enough, testing is worse (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as disasters all out of proportion to the cause, computers are famous for that. There are cases where I've seen very small changes in the code base result in huge messes. This is usually related to pointers or boundary conditions(inputs approaching, or
Re:Writing is bad enough, testing is worse (Score:2)
The situation is worse.
People are surprised when it happens.
I'd blame unit testing and only attempting integration when the units are "debugged".
I'm lazy. I prefer the approach of throwing the whole mess together immediately and watch the fireworks. It's not enough for a unit to behave properly when the rest of the world is correct. It much behave no worse than can be expected regardless of the bugs in the rest of the s
Re:But does it cover... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But does it cover... (Score:2)
IMHO this is completely wrong way to do it. Write your code so that you don't have to check input for sanity - your code should be secure no matter what the input is. What input validation is useful is giving user meaningful error messages.
Yes, like you s
Re:But does it cover... (Score:4, Interesting)
For example, in places where I have validated that phone numbers follow a proper form, the customer service reps assumed that the phone numbers were definitely correct - becuase they were all properly formulated.
It's easier on them if they get a few orders where the phone number is just plain wrong so that they know that this is a USER-generated field and that USERs can lie as much as they want to. It makes it obvious just who is responsible for verifying the validity of the information presented. If you make sure the _form_ is fully prim and proper, people are going to assume that you verified the content as well.
Re:But does it cover... (Score:2)
True. Difficult but true. This belongs in the category of making programs more competent, more flexible, faster, and smaller.
The ideal is something that if it passes a few simple tests, is incapable of finding a (complicated) way to fail.
Re:But does it cover... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:But does it cover... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But does it cover... (Score:2)
You use printf(), obviously.
And prinf() had damned well better be recursive.
Now if the failure is intermittent,
If the failure is permanent, you need to be able to read the blinking lights.
Works with the old obsolete stuff. With the fancy new stuff you're SOL;)
The System I Want (Score:2)
I want support in a high-level language for a construct like:
where the language declaritively specifies what it's going to get for input, validates that input, and causes a catchable exception if it doesn't. Input validation isn't hard, but it's really tedious, which is why people don't do it. The language is supposed to take care of
Re:The System I Want (Score:2)
Re:The System I Want (Score:2)
Re:But does it cover... (Score:5, Informative)
So design it to be secure, then test it! Try to overrun buffers, throw illegal arguments and all around garbage input at it, some specifically designed and even more that are randomized. When it crashes or misbehaves, find out what trashed it and fix it up.
Design, test, test, test, test, test!
Re:But does it cover... (Score:5, Interesting)
Most programmers that i know who have an interest in security have already set up Windows or Linux boxes with known vulnerabilities and attempted to duplicate known exploits. But knowledge is, at best, half of the picture. In most commercial software endeavors, what's really important is convincing everyone along the chain of command that security is important. This seems like it should be simple, but security is one of those horizontal aspects of software development that adds considerably to the expense of system development, but doesn't add many new features.
Further complicating the problem is that even if someone were to develop an environment that attempted to prevent all of the problems caused by programmer errors, it would be horrendously complex and would likely kill performance. Until threat modeling and code inspections with an eye on security become commonplace, this problem will persist.
Re:But does it cover... (Score:4, Insightful)
IMO, a big part of the solution is factoring out solutions for major known security problem areas into the environments, languages, and frameworks that developers use on a day-to-day basis. E.g. if you're using a language with robust automatic memory management, there's little reason to go looking for C-style buffer overflow exploits coded by your developers.
In today's environments (e.g. Windows and current *nix systems) with current popular languages (e.g. C, C++) we're at a big disadvantage. Much of the discussion in this thread presumes that coders can/should amass total knowledge of all levels of security exploits, from binary code injection to cross-site scripting (aka CSS), SQL injection, etc. It becomes overwhelming to a dev who really should be able to focus on the value-added problems at hand. I'm aware of only one cost efficient approach: choose environments, languages, and/or tools that mitigate known security risks.
Where applicable, this can be done by leveraging environments that can limit the scope of attacks. See SELinux [nsa.gov] and GR Security [grsecurity.net] for ways to patch Linux to meet thess needs, or the EROS project for a fresh view of OS security and compartmentalization models. Environment choise is most relevant to folks providing networked services, where they can control the platform specifics.
The cause can also be aided by using languages/frameworks that encapsulate security knowledge. This can be as "simple" as using a language with automatic memory management(to factor out common buffer overflow problems), or along the lines of using scripting frameworks that standardize policies for correctly managing more complex security issues (e.g. cookie management, web input/output validation, CSS issues, etc).
I'd argue that it is possible to improve software security practices significantly simply by careful choices of tools and techniques available today. But it takes a saavy organization to really commit to providing secure software solutions, and to be able to do so in a cost effective manner. As always, the hard part of the equation is programming the wetware. 8-)
Re:But does it cover... (Score:1)
Java does a good job with regards to protecting the local machine when running web-based applets. Java is not as fast as some languages but it does not "kill perfo
Re:But does it cover... (Score:4, Insightful)
The social engineer shows just how easy it is to obtain information from someone than it is to actually copy it from their computer. Just by dressing proper and knowing the correct lingo, you could easily masquarade as an employee for the company.
Read The Art of Deception, by Kevin Mitnick. Great read indeed.
Re:But does it cover... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:But does it cover... (Score:2)
After that, there'll be no security issues in the software!
Exploited already!! (Score:2)
rm -f
touch
Re:Exploited already!! (Score:2)
But there is still a 'sploit for this one, too.
Re:But does it cover... (Score:2)
This is similar to the classic quote:
'If a tree falls in a forest, and no one's around to hear it, and it falls on a mime, does anyone care?' - Gary Larson, The Far Side
Re:But does it cover... (Score:2)
Re:But does it cover... (Score:2)
Whilst the boundaries of stupidity could have no limits, determined, knowledgeable and smart people are statistically more likely to be able to find and exploit the limits of your software, than the stupid people are by accident or ignorance. The curve is different.
As a consultant, I checked a bank web app before it was due to be launched (after an internal
...and would this be useful for the newbie coders? (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone ought to combine a guide for writing secure code, but with exploit examples that dissect it from both crack and code perspective. (does this book do that, perhaps? Maybe I missed it, but I didn;t see any indication of that in there...)
Re:...and would this be useful for the newbie code (Score:5, Interesting)
Note: I did not post this anonymously so I MUST NOT be a troll.
Re:...and would this be useful for the newbie code (Score:3, Funny)
Re:...and would this be useful for the newbie code (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone writing code should be giving careful consideration to security. In my experience few developers do, but that number is increasing...
Good Reading (Score:4, Interesting)
poetry in motion (Score:5, Insightful)
"We wouldn't have to spend so much time, money and effort on network security if we didn't have such bad software security."
Is to smart as
"We wouldn't have some many crumbling roads if heavy vehicles didn't drive on them"
Is to insightful. I still say the best way to experience Bruce's mind in action is in person. In his books he's trying to pander to the market [of let's face it less than apt people] and in person he's talking with fairly brilliant people [e.g. me
Tom
Re:poetry in motion (Score:4, Insightful)
"We wouldn't have to spend so much money fixing roads if we would just build more resiliant roads in the first place"
Which is perfectly true. Sure it's not groundbreaking, but then it's not meant to be. The difficult job for quality insurance people is just to make people like you shut up and actually change the problem behaviors.
Re:poetry in motion (Score:3, Interesting)
"We wouldn't have to spend so much money making our roads perfect if we weren't all driving around on bald tires."
That gets, I think, to the heart of the issue - that people blame the road for problems that might be better addressed by looking at the cars.
Re:poetry in motion (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:poetry in motion (Score:1)
Re:poetry in motion (Score:1)
I don't quite agree with that. It is more like: "We wouldn't have so many crumbling roads if large, heavy, spiked/square tire vehicles running on afterburner didn't drive on them."
IMarv
Re:poetry in motion (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't understand the appeal. The Myth of Homeland Security by Marcus ranum is 100x the book that Schnier's is. Ranum actually worked in Washington, he not only shows where security breaks down, but the why of the politics behind it. In 100 years, professors who wish to study Computer Security at this stage of history will put Ra
Re:poetry in motion (Score:4, Insightful)
Evidently they're not obvious to everyone. If you've been through an airport in the last couple of years, or used a mass-market network-enabled software product, or looked at the security advice given by newspaper columnists, you're forced to conclude that the world needs "Beyond Fear" more than it needs Blowfish.
Bruce Schneier is one of the good guys (Score:2)
And when he does write for a popular audience, he does an invaluable job getting home the ideas that people seem to miss when they're thinking about this stuff. Some of the ideas he promotes are far from truisms, such as for example his campaign to get insurance compani
Re:Bruce Schneier is one of the good guys (Score:2)
But his books for the general public, well, just perform this test. Pick up a copy of Beyond Fear at the bookstore. Open it to a random page. Read a paragraph aloud to a friend. See if the friend says "hmmm" or "duh". I'm going to bet on the latter. Several rev
Re:poetry in motion (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously though... in person he's puts on a good show, has a sense of humour and more importantly knows when to turn off the media filter.
Tom
Let the environment help us (Score:5, Insightful)
Like the security manager in Java and the security "taint" stuff in Perl.
Can't build security on a weak foundation (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Can't build security on a weak foundation (Score:3, Interesting)
C does not have that overhead unless you add it. I don't think that adding another layer is the solution. I think better training of coders would help more. (Which is where a book like this comes in)
Re:Can't build security on a weak foundation (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a healthy attitude to take while you're writing code. I produce better code when I try to convince myself that bug-free code is attainable.
If you're designing entire systems, it's safer to take the realistic view that human error occurs at predictable rates in the most highly trained people. Highly trained people are still vulnerable to getting tired, distracted, misled, and to fat-fingering things.
The question is whether you're willing to spend CPU cycles (the cheapest thing in the world) to reduce the scope for human error (the most certain thing in the world).
Re:Can't build security on a weak foundation (Score:2)
You're argument for C based on performance is just plain silly. Since most security issues center around networking, are you ready to say that network programs are CPU-bound?
Re:Can't build security on a weak foundation (Score:2)
I'm sure the C/C++ bigots will flame the hell out of me. Nonetheless, many of the exploits we read about every day simply wouldn't exist if a safer language were used.
BTW, I participated in the whole "Ada thing" back in the 80's, having worked for a hardware v
Re:Can't build security on a weak foundation (Score:2)
Well, for the C++ part, only for your shown ignorance of C++. I can't imagine calling strcpy (or strncpy, for that matter), too, when I can just write s1 = s2 + s3 with the C++ standard library string class (while not even having to think about how much memory needs to be allocated, or where it needs to be deallocated later). And in C++, all ressource handling (not only memory!) can be handled by a simple rule: Ressources are allocated only in a const
Re:Can't build security on a weak foundation (Score:2)
That is not a 100% solution, especially since knowing when to call a destructor is often difficult as well.
All C++ compilers should have Garbage Collection turned on by default.
Re:Can't build security on a weak foundation (Score:2)
Now, if you are thinking of delete, well, that's again freeing a ressource (memory), and therefore belongs into a destructor.
Re:Can't build security on a weak foundation (Score:2)
Re:Can't build security on a weak foundation (Score:2)
(smart pointers are being the obvious exception; here the allocation should happen directly in the constructor argument and is for the sake of this rule considered part of the smart pointer constructor).
According to the rule, X was newed in a constructor, therefore X must be deleted in the corresponding destructor.
Re:Can't build security on a weak foundation (Score:2)
Smart pointers work okay, but do not work perfectly. They are especially bad when dealing with legacy code.
Garbage Collection takes care of all of this, without having to have lots of overly-strict resource allocation/deallocation rules.
Re:Can't build security on a weak foundation (Score:2)
Re:Can't build security on a weak foundation (Score:2)
Re:Can't build security on a weak foundation (Score:1)
There is far more to security than having to deal with buffer overflow attacks.
Sure Java tends to be more secure, but part of the reason for that is the lack of usage in places where normal C would be - for example I've never seen a setuid(0) Java executable.
For network servers I agree buffer overflows are pretty much prevented by the use of Java. However there are still flaws there to be exploited due to programmer error - such as writing a HTTP server and not filtering out "..".
This kind of problem is
Re:Can't build security on a weak foundation (Score:2)
s/tokenizer/StringTokenizer/ in Java and create a validateInput() method that calls .size() on its imput string and
Re:Can't build security on a weak foundation (Score:2)
Just because you can still make some stupid mistakes is no reason to rule out a language that eliminates a whole category of mistakes. I spent more time than I care to admit chasing down my off-by-1 string copy errors in C. Then there are all the memory management errors, such as using a freed object - the silent kille
Re:Can't build security on a weak foundation (Score:2)
In sane languages, simple and common programmer mistakes should very rarely allow an attacker to run arbitrary code of the attacker's choice.
In C such an occurrence is so common that many people think it is normal and near acceptable.
There must be other languages that perform about as well as C and not prone to such insanity. Looks like we're stuck with C and its problems for an indeterminate time.
Social Engineering (Score:1)
Secure code in risky languages: Hard (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I find that I rarely need to access the thirty-second element of a thirty element array, and I'd die happy if I never have to type for(i=0; i<offbyone; i++){ again.
I used to think that Perl with taint checking enabled was the cat's meow, but I'm now leaning towards Lisp. For the rest of you, is it fair to blame the programmer when his tools (which are supposed to make his life easier) fail him? Use better tools!
Re:Secure code in risky languages: Hard (Score:1)
Still, a good programmer should know his tools, and know the limits of his tools.
Re:Secure code in risky languages: Hard (Score:1)
True, but the problem is that there are so many dangerous limits and gotchas in C/C++. This requires a programmer to spend a large chunk of his time and mental energy thinking about and dealing with these issues. That is time that isn't spend on the business/technical problem the software is supposed to solve.
Wouldn't it be better to use a safer language, where one can do something like:
Re:Secure code in risky languages: Hard (Score:2)
Granted, it's a bit more to type (I'd like to have myvec::iterator!), but where do you have to know the size of the list here?
BTW, if you just call a function, you can have it even shorter:
Re:Secure code in risky languages: Hard (Score:1)
Programming is no different than any other building job. A good C++ programmer knows what tools to use and what tools not to use. Just like a good carpenter knows which hammer to use in each situation.
Therefore, I believe that one can blame the programmer that his tools failed if he didn't use the right tools for the job.
Re:Secure code in risky languages: Hard (Score:2)
This is why I think that for debugging builds (and perhaps this day in age, when it's usually acceptable to waste a few extra cycles, for final builds as well) C/C++ should have runtime array bounds checking built in. You could always do pointer arithmatic to get around that when it's nessesary, anyway.
Also, better tools would be an editor that allows you to make macros for common stuff like the for you mentioned.
/observe ensuing vi vs. emacs flamewar
Re:Use better tools? (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I'm glad there are tools out there than can help me to prevent fucking up. Because that's what I'm good at. Fucking up. Just like all the other humans out there. Even the ones who don't think they fuck up.
How Secure is Secure?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Look at some of the breaches that have been published in the last few years, and then consider if they are the ones they published (usually because they caught the person who hacked them) how many more are unpublished, either because they couldn't catch the attacker, couldn't figure out how the hacker got in in the first place or because said attacker penetrated so deeply they didn't want to be embarresed by it.
But as a good point, it allows people to keep being employed in the network security industry
Re:How Secure is Secure?? (Score:2)
Things like buffer overruns (bad tools and/or bad design) and plain stupidity (build part of IE into kernel space) are the biggest problems in my opinion.
The problem starts at management... (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that even for us security geeks, its nearly impossible to get management to buy into spending the time to make things secure. Nobody would believe the stories I could tell about having security features gutted 'cause marketing decided certificates were too complicated, or 'cause access control systems were too hard to use, so "just put the built in passwords back in", or "*** wants a copy of the private keys", or "*** told me to tell you to check the private keys into version control". Stupid, stupid...
Until companies start caring about making products that are ACTUALLY secure, instead of just hiring security geeks to act as figureheads, then not letting them do their jobs, then system will continue to get hacked.
Re:The problem starts with the programmers... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Security WON'T work until software engineers and programmers get it into their heads that complicated, invasive security procedures don't work if there are any humans around."
If the security procedures are transparent and easy to use from the user standpoint, they will expend and extraordinary amount of ingenuity and cunning to get around them. Usually more than any product designer can spend to develo
Sounds interesting (Score:5, Informative)
It sounds like this is a more serious and rigious book, and those that were turned off of Jon Erickson's Hacking might prefer it. I think I will take a look at it.
I think new programmers are likely better served reading something like Writing Secure Code [microsoft.com]: Practical Strategies and Proven Techniques for Building Secure Applications in a Networked World by Michael Howard and David LeBlanc or Building Secure Software [secureprogramming.com] by John Viega than get bogged down in details of this book.
Re:Sounds interesting (Score:3, Funny)
Unreasonable expectations. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ugh that's like saying "most office desks aren't secure since their locks are weak and can be drilled easily".
Part of the problem is one of expectations. When people use insecure components and have unreasonable expectations that the'll magically be safe because one piece asked for a password.
There's nothing wrong with components (desk locks or computers) that expect to be kept in benevolent environments.
Next they'll be telling us Wikipedia's not secure because their password-checker is weak.
Re:Unreasonable expectations. (Score:5, Insightful)
great book (Score:1)
It's Kind of Sad... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's kind of sad that a statement like this is even necessary. It's an interesting statement regarding what kind of qualifications are often necessary just to get a typical reader to give you credit for not being an idiot.
Re:It's Kind of Sad... (Score:2)
I don't know--I think it's appropriate for for the author of a review of a book on computer security to discuss his credentials with respect to computer security.
If I were to write this review, I'd probably say something like, "The material was far too detailed and complex. The author
Re:It's Kind of Sad... (Score:2)
However,
software isn't the problem (Score:3, Interesting)
But the biggest security problem was and likely always will be, people who have access to sensitive information that do not act responsibly. Our systems have never been compromised, but once we transmit information to the client, that data becomes a lot less secure, whether it's from a compromised client machine, a rogue employee or a badly-chosen password.
Re:software isn't the problem (Score:2)
Whether you are talking about cars, software or jungle gyms, engineers design things for sensible people.
The problem is that management want silver bullets and airtight systems and users want usability. Nobody really wins in the short term.
Re:software isn't the problem (Score:2)
This is because we've turned into a race of people who prefer to ask "What?" or "Who?" instead of "Why?". We've been programmed to expect instant results and preemptive, pseudo-abstract ideas such as "a secure philosophy" don't seem to offer the instant gratification that blaming everything on the software does.
Exploiting people is a lot easier than exploiting hardware and software. Our entire economy is built around exploiting people, but the powers-that-be don't want this issue to be raised be
Disappointing (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm afraid I exited acroread in disgust.
Bill Joy Has The Word (Score:4, Insightful)
- Bill Joy
I liked (Score:4, Insightful)
It provided these same thoughts on software design, but also delved into more the ASM side of things. The book went on to state that "there is no such thing as secure code." I believe this statement to be true. With the current patch n sniff state of Windows, it is very easy to overflow a buffer to execute code. I have oft heard someone say my pc is unhackable, I run blah firewall, or X N.A.T. the sad fact is they are as easy to compromise as an unsecured network pc is. With the plethora of IE and other browser vulnerabilities out there you don't need to drive a tank through the front door. Seems though Microsoft left a Window open.
Re:I liked (Score:3, Funny)
Hmmm
Jon Erickson's "Hacking: The Art of Exploitation" (Score:2, Interesting)
The other half of the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
This problem is "feature requests from users." If very few developers understand security well enough to write secure code, think about how much less end users know. Yet it is the end user who pays us. They're our ultimate boss, even on the free-beer Open Source side of things.
At work I've had feature requirements come to me from marketing that would absolutely eviscerate the product's security. I've also seen bug reports elevated to top priority that that would reduce or eliminate product security.
Here are some hypothetical (I hope) examples to show the dangers of this in the Open Source arena. While some of these might have been absurd a few years ago, with today's hyper-concern of usability, it wouldn't surprise me if they actually got implemented.
"It's too much work changing file permissions by hand, so we need a way to automatically execute arbitrary files."
"It's too much work remembering passwords, or remembering the master password for a password manager, so there needs to be a daemon running that will remember for us."
"Messages in XYZ email client should be automatically rendered in HTML/CSS/Javascript."
"The interface is too cluttered! Hide file name extensions!"
Or my all time favorite...
"Linux needs a InstallShield clone!"
Re:The other half of the problem (Score:1, Offtopic)
A little OT rant - file extensions are a horrid beast which should never have been allowed to surface. The MacOS method is much better. In fact, computer designers really need to rethink metadata handling from the ground up. I did a short thinking exercise on this here:
http://www.eskimo.com/~johnnyb/computers/MetaInfo r mation.html [eskimo.com]
Re:The other half of the problem (Score:2)
Previous link is cut off. Most of the useful info is gone. I'll try to find a backup copy and repost.
Non-computer people just do not understand it (Score:1)
A few years ago I was designing a radio network protocol for an electricity distribution client to control their switches. I said that I was going to encrypt the information, they said "Why?" After explaining the problems they simply replied that they had their own cell phone network for the transmissions, no one would break into it and they weren't i
Re:Just what we needs... (Score:2)
Or, I just failed to get the joke