Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot [LWN.net]

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 4, 2013 8:50 UTC (Thu) by paulj (subscriber, #341)
In reply to: Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot by raven667
Parent article: Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Yes, security is a continuum, and there is no such thing as perfect security. There are many security people (or people working on security technologies) who often forget that, typically because they overly focused on some specific threat and ignore the bigger picture (or, it is not their job to consider the bigger picture), or alternatively because they will not bear the costs of what they are proposing/implementing.

There are many security steps you might take which, while not offering perfect security, are still worthwhile. E.g. it is worth locking my door, even though this would not stop someone who is prepared to bash the door in. However, fitting a lock to my front door would *not* be the best prioritisation of my resources if the windows and other external entrances still hadn't had window frames & glass, & doors fitted.

I.e. security measures have to be seen in context. Any given security measure can not be said to be worthwhile of itself. It must be assessed in context with the threat - realistic threats - AND in context with the rest of the system the security measure will be put in place with.

General purpose OSes, and the software they run today are ridiculously insecure. Secure Boot can NOT secure a Linux system from at-boot infection from the class of attackers who can write rootkits or firmware exploits. Because it is equally possible to write an exploit for early, privileged userspace, and use a general runtime exploit to install it. "Secure Boot" buys you *nothing* in this context. Similarly, I don't believe "Secure Boot" will do anything to make Windows 8 more resistant to viruses and malware.

However, "Secure Boot" CAN prevent the average *OWNER* of the machine from using the machine - once the "restricted boot" bit is set by some other party (e.g. the hardware vendor). In this context, the "Secure Boot" technology does indeed generally work. It makes "Restricted Boot" work.

"Secure Boot" will not help security on general purpose Linux machines, from capable attackers. The main class of people who could possibly be stymied by "Secure Boot" are the users. All the other instances of this technology, from Tivo to game-consoles, to phones, are being used to prevent *OWNERS* from having full access to their hardware.

To think "Secure Boot" is about helping owners secure their own machines against others seems very very naïve to me.

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Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 9:41 UTC (Sun) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link] (42 responses)

I think you're being very pessimistic. Yes, it's possible to malware to simply stick something in the early boot sequence and it will get run. That's because nobody has ever bothered to build any verification in because there's no point unless you know the kernel you're running is trusted and until recently that was essentially impossible. A classic chicken and egg problem.

With secure boot you finally have a method to trust the kernel and early userspace which means it becomes feasible to start enforcing useful policy, such as "users may only run programs that come from signed packages".

Besides, you don't need to secure an entire Windows system, you only need to secure it far enough to be able to start your virus scanner without loading any malware first so the malware can't hide itself from the scanner.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 12:13 UTC (Sun) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (2 responses)

My sistematic opposition to "secure" boot is based on the following argument:

1. yes, it *is* a (small) beachhead; BUT
2. it is a very strategic and hijack-able beachhead that can be used by a third player (not you nor the malware author) to support this third players's interests in detriment of yours; AND
3. it is a somewhat useless beachhead because you cannot secure the post-boot env enough.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 16:10 UTC (Sun) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (1 responses)

> strategic and hijack-able beachhead

How is that supposed to work?

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 17:34 UTC (Sun) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link]

By flipping the theoretical bit that separates "secure" boot from "restricted" boot. Then the only bootable things will be those that are approved by the third party (the original hw's OS vendor, in casu, Microsoft).

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 12:29 UTC (Sun) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (38 responses)

So go "fix" the system so that all privileged code, kernel or userspace, that is guaranteed to run (i.e. cause it is involved in starting the system) is secure. And *then* implement Secure Boot.

Because, until you have something secure to actually boot, all that Secure Boot infrastructure will do is give vendors/media companies a very tempting switch to flip over to "Restricted Boot". This technology tends to only be "Secure" against normal computer users - i.e. the end-user, the owner of the device.

Do that, and *then* come back about Secure Boot. Until then, you're only handing the vendor/media companies a tool that is effective mostly for DRM. And some of the vendors are ALSO media companies.

I'm not being pessimistic. Making software secure is hard. Very very hard. Vendors have tried to get "Restricted Boot" on other platforms, and mostly they fail, despite having much more control over the code that will be run, and (often) that code being much reduced and having less scope for attack than on a Linux or Windows system.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 13:16 UTC (Sun) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link] (37 responses)

Things are being fixed. When going for an end goal it's usually a good idea to tackle all the remaining problems in parallel, rather than doing them serially. You correctly point out that solving each problem (boot, kernel, userspace) individually is useless, so they are being tackled all at the same time.

I don't understand your argument about DRM, since a system cannot determine whether it was booted securely or not. That makes it kinda pointless for DRM. All secure boot can do is refuse to boot if it finds something wrong.

You're right that securing software is hard, but the only goal here is to secure the boot process, not the entire system. This makes the problem much more tractable. Even if all we achieve is the extinction of boot malware then I think it all worthwhile.

Anyway, it seems to me that doing nothing is the worst option, since hardware with this enabled is shipping right now and doing nothing means Linux won't boot on those machines without extra steps.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 13:31 UTC (Sun) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (1 responses)

> I don't understand your argument about DRM, since a system cannot determine whether it was booted securely or not. That makes it kinda pointless for DRM. All secure boot can do is refuse to boot if it finds something wrong.

Your argument is inconsistent. At the point where you restrict the boot, the system can determine that it was booted securely by the simple fact that it is running.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 15:42 UTC (Sun) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

No, I don't think it works that way because the verification is done in the previous layer of code and there is no reliable signalling to the next layer signifying whether it did any checks at all.

Anything that can be booted in Secure Boot mode can also be booted without Secure Boot enabled and it won't know the difference. Your Secure Boot capable bootloader/kernel can't refuse to start on a non-Secure Boot enabled system, or one that is faking Secure Boot checking. For example a VM.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 13:42 UTC (Sun) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (34 responses)

Yes, it may be better to do things in parallel, to achieve a task. However, you miss the point entirely.

The task - "Secure Boot" - is likely not achievable. At least it is not achievable against the class of attacker against whom Secure Boot is aimed at, those sophisticated enough to be able to subvert the system at runtime, so as to be able to subvert which software is booted. If they can do this, they can subvert the system at runtime *again* and *again*.

If the task is not achievable, then implementing the "Secure Boot" technology doesn't help get you there. However, it does get you toward "Restricted Boot", which *does* work - most computer users are not sophisticated enough to get around it on their own without help. Even if that help exists in the form of a ready to run unlock, it often has bricking-risks that not all users want to take.

As for DRM, DRM does NOT require a "determine whether it was booted securely flag". I've heard someone claim this was a requirement before, and it's simply a non-sense. It is *only* required IFF the system is designed to be allowed to booted unrestricted. IF the system ONLY allows "Restricted Boot", then there is NO NEED for a flag - the platform is *assumed* secure.

E.g., assume Windows "8+X" (X>=1) will specify boot MUST be restricted. Then any programme designed so it can only run on "8+X" has NO NEED for a flag in order to be able to assume it has been booted on a "Restricted Boot" platform.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 15:52 UTC (Sun) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (33 responses)

Even in your Win9+ case the running system still doesn't know whether integrity checking existed when it booted, it could be booted on a system without integrity checking and wouldn't know the difference. A system can't refuse to boot if Secure Boot isn't enabled as far as I know, so can be booted on non-Secure Boot enabled hardware (or VM) and have any "DRM" restrictions trivially bypassed. It wouldn't be useful for protecting anything valuable.

Wouldn't it be better to agitate against boot locking where it exists (in the ARM world) rather than where it explicitly isn't?

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 16:51 UTC (Sun) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (32 responses)

It doesn't matter, if you simply can't buy a platform that doesn't have integrity checking. Further, the lack of a flag in Secure Boot does not preclude that flag being added. If/when it is added, it will not affect software that doesn't know about it.

The hard part to getting Restricted Boot deployed was always going to be the non-MS OSes and allowing them to still boot. The major non-MS PC OS has happily gone along with implementing the required interface. The lack of a flag today, or addition of any future one, will now not prevent those OSes booting in Restricted Boot mode, should the bit ever get flipped.

If that happens, the Linux vendors will no longer have any meaningful dog in the fight, with which to raise a stink about.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 17:15 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (31 responses)

"the lack of a flag in Secure Boot does not preclude that flag being added"

Correct - it's the fact that it's impossible to add such a flag that precludes that flag being added.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 18:10 UTC (Sun) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (30 responses)

Why would it be impossible?

I think it'd be impossible for it to be impossible tbh.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 18:15 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (29 responses)

If you can trust the firmware, there's no point in the firmware setting a flag to indicate that it's trusted. If you can't trust the firmware, you can't trust the state of any flag it's providing.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 18:46 UTC (Sun) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (19 responses)

Garrett, you keep ignoring the point here; and that is: "secure" boot does not help securing the boot process, but it DOES help the bad guys to push restricted boot down the line.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 18:56 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (18 responses)

>"secure" boot does not help securing the boot process

By that argument selinux doesn't improve security because there exist kernel exploits that allow you to disable it. Having a separate root account doesn't improve security because there exist userspace exploits that allow elevation of privileges. Passwords don't improve security because there are flaws in web browsers that allow attackers to run keyloggers.

Security isn't binary. Secure Boot on its own doesn't make the boot process entirely secure, but it does make it more secure. It's also a prerequisite for any real security implementation.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 20:35 UTC (Sun) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (17 responses)

raven667 also gave the "security isn't binary" argument before, my response to that is at: http://lwn.net/Articles/545877/

The problem with your example is that you have the pre-requisites the wrong way around. A more secure/controlled user-space, which technologies like SELinux try to give, is the *pre-requisite for Secure Boot*. Further, Secure Boot *also* requires a secure kernel, at least one a lot more secure than we have today. We are a *long* way from having this.

Now, once you have secured kernel and user-space to the point you can have some confidence that all software that is guaranteed to run (e.g. start-up) is unlikely to be subverted by the class of attacker you're worried about, then here's the funny thing: You don't need Secure Boot anymore!

The amazing thing about Secure Boot is that for it to worth anything to the owner, it requires the very thing that would render it moot.

However, Secure Boot is still worth something to others - it gets "Restricted Boot \ 1 flag" implemented, deployed and supported by Windows and all the major PC OSes. When that is done, then if someone flips that bit, there will be no Linux vendor left who can say "that breaks our boot".

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 20:45 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (8 responses)

And selinux would be unnecessary if userspace were already secure, so it's also pointless?

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 22:33 UTC (Sun) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (6 responses)

The problem here is that our argument is: deep "secure" boot support collaborates with future restriction of boot. SElinux, OTOH, does no such thing.

You can see another difference in nomenclature: one pretends to be "secure", the other explicitly states that it is "security-enhanced". Who is blatantly lying to the consumer? :-D

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 22:40 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (5 responses)

So it adds security, you just worry that it can be used for evil? That's not what you said earlier.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 11, 2013 13:39 UTC (Thu) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (4 responses)

Actually, if you open this whole thread and search for my comments, you'll see that it's exactly what I have been saying all along.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 11, 2013 14:05 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (3 responses)

You said

>"secure" boot does not help securing the boot process

in http://lwn.net/Articles/546340/ .

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 11, 2013 17:29 UTC (Thu) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (1 responses)

you redacted the important part of the sentence... ;-)

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 11, 2013 17:36 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

The rest of it says nothing about security, so I'm not sure how it's relevant to the case in hand.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 11, 2013 17:43 UTC (Thu) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link]

I will complement my last comment, above, trying to clarify my position. English is not my native language, so I apologize if not everything I think about the subject came across.

1. I believe the difference between what is called "secure" and "restricted" boot modes is a single bit in policy.

2. I do believe "secure" boot adds to security -- like locking your door, it does not add a lot, but you only has to run faster than your campmate when the bear comes. Mixing metaphors rules!

3. It is my impression that, just like locking your door, "secure" boot is not a deterrent to a determined, targeted attack... and those are the ones that worry me more.

4. In my firm opinion, "secure" boot plays into the commercial interests of the same people that are pushing, and will continue pursuing, "restricted" boot.

5. In conclusion, it is my opinion that doing any more work WRT "secure" boot once the loading shim is already signed and working is a disservice to the free and open source software community.

6. Even so, it is also my believe that I don't have the right tell you (or anyone else) what free software you should or should not work on (unless I pay you to work in whatever I want only).

7. But I have the right to think that people are being silly and pointing it out.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 5:08 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

SELinux allows the admin to control how running software interacts, including software not critical to startup, and software that interacts with the outside world, and software that dumb/malicious users might run (inc. software they load into the box). It can restrict what compromised software can do. It brings tangible benefits to securing user-space, particularly for network facing software, despite its complexity.

Security in context: What does Secure Boot add against the type of attackers sophisticated enough to subvert the kernel and modify boot? Why _aren't_ these attackers also capable of just subverting the boot, again and again?

There's a whole class of software, and methods of attacking it, that have traditionally been viewed as "not security-sensitive", which suddenly become *front-line* once you have Secure Boot, from /etc config files, to state in /var, to kernel modules, to on-disk fs data structures (h/t Al). If those fail, then there'll still be a wealth of data read by non-privileged programmes from which to get started up and then run a kernel exploit.

The Google Chrome security bounties have demonstrated that we over-estimate the benefits of just adding additional hoops, and that the X-hats are incredibly capable at stringing together exploits of long chains of bugs into attacks.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 21:51 UTC (Sun) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link] (7 responses)

Secure Boot doesn't require a secure kernel. Let's assume the kernel is insecure, a reasonably valid assumption as you point out.

Case 1: Malware uses a vulnerability in the kernel to join a botnet and hide itself from userspace. This is out of scope for secure boot so not relevant.

Case 2: Malware uses a vulnerability in the kernel to modify the boot sector so it gets run the next time the computer starts up. The next boot the firmware checks the boot sector and complains to the user that there's an unverified boot sector and that the user should use a boot CD to clean it. Secure Boot achieves it's goal because it's impossible for the malware to install a boot sector that passes the test.

Now you can say that the malware will just install itself into /etc/rc.d/ instead and you'd be right. That's just because no-one has written the code to do any verification on that directory, not because it's not possible. Those tests would be effective at preventing the malware running on boot *even if the kernel was insecure*.

The only thing Microsoft (really Verisign) requires before signing a bootloader is that it can't be used by malware to subvert the windows boot process so it can pass the boot sector test. But this is a social problem which can't be solved by technical means. That's why a bootloader which says "Hi! You're booting MyBootLoader. If this is not what you're expecting contact technical support. Press any key to continue." would probably get signed since it won't allow malware to hide itself.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 22:44 UTC (Sun) by viro (subscriber, #7872) [Link] (6 responses)

Bullshit. Suppose the kernel hole in question is in e.g. parsing on-disk metadata. You are going to mount root fs, right? And all the "let's make sure /etc/rc.d/ isn't modified" crap in the world is not going to do anything about that, since no visible files need to be modified.

And before you go into "oh, but that reduces attack surface" - not really. Consider a combination of (1) hole in some piece of shit desktop software that goes through luser's homedir and cross-references his pr0n stash^W^Wphoto collection with (2) kernel exploit of any kind used by the code hidden in said collection and executed by (1). Sure, it'll wait until the luser logs in. BFD.

Once a box had been had, it's been had, period.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 2:10 UTC (Mon) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

That sounds like a nasty scenario but I don't think any general security technology can fix that but even in this case you could safely download an updated kernel and the most your fully owned system could do is block the update, it couldn't modify it.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 18:09 UTC (Mon) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link] (4 responses)

Sure, it'll wait until the luser logs in. BFD.

Actually, I find this a BFD. It means the virus scanner started at boot has a chance to download new signatures and scan for the malware before it has a chance to run. That's a significant improvement over the current situation.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 20:26 UTC (Mon) by viro (subscriber, #7872) [Link] (3 responses)

In which respect? That Scamantec and their ilk get money from more suckers? I had a front-seat view of some of their games and I'd trust a politician sooner than those shits. If you rely on their products, you deserve everything you get - stupidity must be punished, after all...

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 22:37 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (2 responses)

So when is Linux going to be completely exploit-free with rigidly defined security sandboxes isolating applications' data?

What? You say "never"?

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 11:32 UTC (Tue) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (1 responses)

I seriously doubt this goal is even possible.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 15:27 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

And that's why antiviruses are a practical compromise. Yes, they are an ugly kludge but reality is also quite ugly.

If Linux were as popular as Windows then it would have needed antivirus-like applications as well.

And yes, Android actually already has an antivirus app that runs on Google's servers.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 20:36 UTC (Sun) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (8 responses)

Then this flag argument is generally specious, and there is no Restricted Boot that needs it.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 7, 2013 20:50 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (7 responses)

Right. So Secure Boot is completely worthless as a DRM-enforcement mechanism. Restricted Boot is not.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 5:16 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (6 responses)

Restricted Boot doesn't need a flag either. There are systems which big media companies assume to be secure and have working DRM, simply by dint of platform information. No other flags needed. It might not be true, but it seems to be good enough for the likes of the BBC.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 6:32 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (5 responses)

I have no idea what you're trying to say here, so I'm just going to reiterate that there's no way to use Secure Boot as a DRM mechanism and if you disagree then you can describe exactly how it's supposed to work.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 6:41 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (4 responses)

You recognise Restricted Boot is useful for building a DRM system (2 comments above this). You say a flag is pointless for Secure Boot, it is then equally pointless for Restricted Boot, by the very same argument. I don't even know why this flag issue was brought up (I didn't).

The fact still remains that "Secure Boot" differs from "Restricted Boot" by 1 bit of information, which is at the whim of a number of hardware vendors.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 6:55 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (3 responses)

So… you're agreeing that Secure Boot isn't useful as a DRM mechanism? Like I said, I have no idea what you're trying to say here.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 7:23 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (2 responses)

You have said Restricted Boot is useful for a DRM system. You don't seem to quibble that Secure Boot and Restricted Boot differ by anything more significant than a bit of information controlled by the maker. I'm sure you're more than intelligent to understand what the implication is, should you be motivated to understand.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 14:34 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (1 responses)

No, I think you're going to have to be explicit about what you're saying.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 18:21 UTC (Mon) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

Actually, I'd like clarification how Restricted Boot helps a DRM system. AFAICS it will merely lull media companies into a false sense of security because they might think it actually secures the system while it only secures the boot process.

Take any software that implements DRM, run it in a VM and you can bypass anything. You will need to arrange to run the exploit every boot though.

I find most interesting the contrast:

Securing a PC against malware - good
Securing an platform against hacks on the DRM - bad

While these two situations are technically indistinguishable.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 18:50 UTC (Mon) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (28 responses)

> However, fitting a lock to my front door would *not* be the best prioritisation of my resources if the windows and other external entrances still hadn't had window frames & glass, & doors fitted

I have two points here, 1) The development labor happens in parallel and independently so there is no prioritization implied, work on Secure Boot doesn't take away work from other security technologies, multiple things can be worked on at once. 2) There is already quite a depth of available security technologies from permissions to SELinux to various sandboxing and namespace technologies to whole VMs so it is not fair to say that other avenues of attack aren't covered in some way. Secure Boot is a fall back position to help recover a system when those other technologies have failed but those other technologies are on the front line of defense and are being worked on all the time.

> Because it is equally possible to write an exploit for early, privileged userspace, and use a general runtime exploit to install it. "Secure Boot" buys you *nothing* in this context.

This really depends on how far you can extend your prevention of unauthorized remote modification. At some point you have to allow arbitrary code to run but the farther you can push that out the more base OS tools you can fall back on to reliably clean out the later layers, including anti-malware software.

> However, "Secure Boot" CAN prevent the average *OWNER* of the machine from using the machine - once the "restricted boot" bit is set by some other party (e.g. the hardware vendor). In this context, the "Secure Boot" technology does indeed generally work. It makes "Restricted Boot" work.

Secure Boot _can't_ be used to prevent the owner of the machine from doing what they like because that's not how the policy works, so that's not how the technology works. Fighting against a policy change to enable boot locking, which is what the article is about and where you share common ground, doesn't require one to be against boot time signature verification in any form just because it uses the same technology.

You can join on the common ground of being generally against boot locking if you are willing to accept that some people do actually like the idea of user-controlled boot time signature verification.

I see this whole debate, of being generally anti-SecureBoot, as being the same arguments as being anti-encryption. The anti-encryption stance is that "bad guys" might use unbreakable encryption to "bad things" so therefore no one should be allowed to have encryption without allowing that the "good guys" use of encryption outweighs the potential for bad use.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 20:19 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (27 responses)

On the labour point: this only makes sense if:

a) The overall goal is achievable

b) The sub-task delivers some benefit of its own, regardless of whether or not the overall goal is achievable.

It is highly doubtful that the overall goal is achievable, at least not with the way the software that compromises a Linux system is developed today. Indeed, it's highly uncertain the overall goal is achievable at all.

So then the question is about b, what does "Secure Boot" achieve, if it is booting software that is swiss cheese to any half-decent exploit writer (but not to ordinary users, necessarily)? If nothing, then it is (at best) labour wasted. At worst, it is deploying a system that will only secure systems against normal users, but not capable crackers (or those with access to the tools of such).

What exactly will "Secure Boot" achieve, in the context of a full system? What threats will it guard against?

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 8, 2013 21:15 UTC (Mon) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (26 responses)

> What exactly will "Secure Boot" achieve, in the context of a full system? What threats will it guard against?

It gives you the benefits of booting off read-only media but with the ability to update software without changing physical media. It provides a small limit on the ways an attacker can hide their activity by modifying your system and gives you some control over the software that you run, how much control you have is up to how much control you implement.

>At worst, it is deploying a system that will only secure systems against normal users, but not capable crackers (or those with access to the tools of such).
> If nothing, then it is (at best) labour wasted.

Agreed there is no point in wasting a lot of time on fancy control schemes when malware writers have clearly demonstrated the ability to just bury their malware in deeper layers of the systems if they have to. That's one reason why there hasn't been a lot of work on anti-malware tools on Linux although there has been a lot of work on sandboxing and containment technologies.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 5:23 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (22 responses)

I don't understand the read-only media / update benefit? Secure Boot doesn't give you read-only media (see previous discussions about using existing data to exploit the "Secure Boot"ed software). You would need to heavily restrict the ability of the "Secure" software to load or read any external data, as well as restrict the ability of any user to modify any of the existing data. At that point, you no longer have a general purpose system.

The attackers that are controlled will be the unsophisticated ones, the ones who can't write an exploit to begin with, and who don't have access to the ones already written. I.e. users who aren't generally in the habit of subverting boxes anyway, aren't aware of / in the security/cracking scene. I.e. normal users.

What is your view on how the benefits to user-owners of "Secure Boot" weigh up against the risks that others use this technology to "Secure" the machine against the user-owner? E.g. those who control the software/machine before it is given to the user-owner, such as the vendor? Clearly you believe this system can be used to secure a machine to at least some extent (and I agree). So why not against the user-owner? All it takes is for the vendor to /remove/ one feature. That is 1 bit of information's difference to go from "Secure Boot" to "Restricted Boot". Why will this not happen?

Can you at least acknowledge this is a risk?

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 16:31 UTC (Tue) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (15 responses)

> I don't understand the read-only media / update benefit?

I was just trying to say that the security properties it is trying to achieve are analogous to the properties of booting from read-only media, but with the ability to install updates even when running on Satan's Machine.

> You would need to heavily restrict the ability of the "Secure" software to load or read any external data, as well as restrict the ability of any user to modify any of the existing data. At that point, you no longer have a general purpose system.

There is definitely the possibility of implementation bugs that trigger on the data which is loaded from early boot or by the OS. Filesystem bugs have been demonstrated in practice on USB sticks and are very nasty indeed. The difference is that you still have the ability to reliably patch the system, the fix can't be modified in transit. I should also point out that there is a limited attack surface that can be modified remotely affecting early boot so a greater benefit from auditing the critical code paths that touch untrusted data.

> What is your view on how the benefits to user-owners of "Secure Boot" weigh up against the risks that others use this technology to "Secure" the machine against the user-owner?

I think it has a small but clearly tangible benefit while the risk is nebulous and in-tangible. There is a large installed base of systems such as Win7, Linux, *BSD which don't support a boot-locked, Tivoized system so I don't see the existing hardware getting firmware updates which change this behavior and break those installed systems. All of this is happening out in the open so it is no mystery if, in the future, a vendor tries to ship a boot-locked system or if MS tries to boot lock the next generation of hardware, there will be plenty of warning. That is something we all agree can and should be fought.

> Why will this not happen?

Even in the phone market where boot locking is very common many vendors don't boot lock their devices and some (Google Nexus) explicitly call out the openness as a feature. I don't think it a likely outcome that the general purpose PC market becomes _more_ restrictive and locked down than the smart phone market. If MS and the hardware vendors wanted the machines to be boot locked then there would probably just be different SKUs for Win8 bootlocked machines and general purpose machines, like you see in the smart phone industry, but that's not what happened.

> Can you at least acknowledge this is a risk?

Is there a reasonable risk that some vendor at some time will try an sell a boot locked x86 PC, sure that's possible, don't buy those machines and expect to run Linux on them, but is there a large risk that the vast majority of the market in the future, or the machines already shipped, become boot locked, I don't think that's a foreseeable outcome. I think it would be expensive and difficult to get hardware vendors and customers on that bandwagon for very little benefit as MS already gets a cut of most machine sales. Secure Boot can't even tell if you paid for the bits, only that they are signed, so it's useless against piracy.

Thanks for the lively and civil debate, I think we both understand each other's ideas now and we agree on the core argument that boot locking is bad but I don't see the value in rejecting any boot verification, even an open, user-controlled one, just because it works like boot locking.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 16:57 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (12 responses)

You can't patch a compromised system back to non-compromised status. The rootkit can just lie to you that it has installed the update. It can lie to you about the kernel version in boots there-after.

Once your box is compromised, you're hosed.

You're deluding yourself that Secure Boot gives you the equivalent of "read-only media, except to the software I trust", because the base OS is simply *way* too large to trust to be secure against exploits. At least, for a general purpose, generally programmable OS.

What you /really/ want is a "Secure Layer" between the software you don't trust (i.e. pretty much all software), and the software you have no choice but to trust (i.e. the base OS, which is on your side, but is too large and has to do too much low-level, fiddly work to be securable). Secure Boot doesn't give you that layer. The claimed security benefits are illusory.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 18:44 UTC (Tue) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (11 responses)

> You can't patch a compromised system back to non-compromised status. The rootkit can just lie to you that it has installed the update. It can lie to you about the kernel version in boots there-after.

It can fail to install the update but not hide that fact, it can't modify the boot procedure so you'd still be visibly booting the old kernel. If you can push update code into the verified part of the boot process, from the systemd recovery console maybe, then you might be able to update before the malware could even block it. You can certainly do that for the UEFI firmware itself which has a network stack and drivers that are available before your system could be re-exploited by malware.

Of course, as I mentioned in the other thread, an exploit through unvalidated data reads such as configs, variables or filesystem mounts could subvert your checking before it gets off the ground but that's true regardless of the security precautions, your SELinux or file permissions aren't much good after malicious code is running around in the kernel.

> What you /really/ want is a "Secure Layer" between the software you don't trust (i.e. pretty much all software), and the software you have no choice but to trust (i.e. the base OS, which is on your side, but is too large and has to do too much low-level, fiddly work to be securable). Secure Boot doesn't give you that layer. The claimed security benefits are illusory.

I think that's called a hypervisor 8-) Virtualizing x86 and using the extra layer of memory protection built into modern CPU/IOMMUs has a much lower vulnerability surface area than the userspace/kernelspace and has shown to be strong in practice given the low number of VM exploits compared to the number of kernel exploits. The fact that Secure Boot isn't a hypervisor doesn't detract or affect what it does try to do.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 18:55 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (10 responses)

> It can fail to install the update but not hide that fact, it can't modify the boot procedure so you'd still be visibly booting the old kernel.

Sure it could

the label that is shown to the user has no connection with the binary blob that gets loaded, it's only convention that keeps them matching.

Once the system boots the old kernel and loads the exploit, it can then lie about what version it is.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 19:08 UTC (Tue) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (9 responses)

I was thinking more about the message which are printed as the kernel boots up, the first of which is the version information.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 20:00 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (8 responses)

The messages which modern distros have hidden away behind user friendly splash screens?

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 20:03 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (4 responses)

Oh, and under the control of the subverted software :)

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 20:34 UTC (Tue) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (3 responses)

Yes, the messages are generally hidden behind splash screens but are still accessible (the display office is in a filing cabinet in a disused lavatory in the basement with a sign on the door "Beware of Leopard" 8-) Aside from the possibility of an exploit of the firmware or kernel from stored config or filesystem metadata the kernel can't be subverted at the time those messages are printed. A syslog which sends the logs remotely or which signs them so the can't be removed/modified on disk, like rsyslog or the systemd journal, could also prevent the malware from being hidden even if it tries to retroactively edit the dmesg buffer after the malware starts, presuming that the system software is started before the malware is allowed to.

The world is not a perfect place but it seems you still have more and better options with boot time validation than without any. Heck, the threat of failing a validation check should keep most malware away of the difficult to exploit protected parts and focused on the easier unprotected parts later in the boot process where it is simpler to deal with.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 20:52 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (2 responses)

You're assuming syslog gets to run before the system is re-subverted, alternatively, you're assuming syslog isn't subvertable through anything it reads. I'll grant those assumptions, while not rock-solid, aren't terribly far-fetched.

You still have a *massive* assumption: that the new kernel isn't subvertable.

While, perhaps, the subversion that compromised your box on the previous boot may be fixed, that doesn't mean there aren't still a number of other extant holes still unpatched, that only the exploit writers know about.

You're assuming the exploit has only laid 1 trap to ensnare the next boot.

Back to syslog: How many remotely syslog? Of those, how many would notice a discrepancy between the remotely logged version numbers and the local uname -a? Hell, how many would notice if the exploit didn't bother faking the version? :)

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 21:15 UTC (Tue) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (1 responses)

> You still have a *massive* assumption: that the new kernel isn't subvertable.

I don't think that is assumed, I'd have had to make the claim that any and all kernel images are perfect and totally secure for you to make that claim, I didn't and that's not a reasonable claim.

> Of those, how many would notice a discrepancy between the remotely logged version numbers and the local uname -a? Hell, how many would notice if the exploit didn't bother faking the version? :)

Damn few, but once exploits in the wild start using that technique it becomes burned, some people will start putting automated checks in their logging systems and the technique will stop working. You see that happen with exploits, once they start circulating in the wild the vendor patches the vulnerability and it becomes less and less effective so that the cycle starts anew.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 10, 2013 6:29 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Still though, you're putting your faith in a security technology whose effectiveness depends on an arms race where the "bad" guys are routinely way ahead. We simply do not know how to make software secure, and so there's no way we can make a large base OS secure. You're *will* regularly lose, if/when you're attacked.

To have any hope of winning the arms race, your faith must go into software that both a) is minimal in size b) is minimal in the services it presents to software that uses it c) and limits the scope of software using it. Userspace sand-boxing and VMs basically. The Android user-space is the state-of-the-art in the real-world, widely-deployed system space when it comes to security and isolation of code, I think. And note that that security model does NOT rely on "Secure Boot".

That's not OS hypervisors, note, because if you're simply running the same OS in the hypervisor you still have the same problem in your virtualised OS. You have a more secure OS underneath to do integrity checks from, I'd agree, but it does not give you any means to have any additional trust in the software you're using at runtime. You still are just as prone to runtime subversion because you still have no isolation/sandboxing between the code & data you don't trust and the rest of the software. Also, things like the Qemu hardware emulation (which seem to be used a lot elsewhere) can have relatively complex interfaces, and they weren't necessarily written in a "security first" way. There have been a number of exploits in this code over the years.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 20:22 UTC (Tue) by apoelstra (subscriber, #75205) [Link] (2 responses)

The messages which modern distros have hidden away behind user friendly splash screens?

Right now, without secure boot, it wouldn't help anything to display version information on boot because running 'uname -a' on the booted system would have the same effect. In a secure boot world if you've got a way to display a version and cryptographically prove that it is not a lie, it would be used.

Probably there would be a magic key (escape or F1 or something) to make the pretty boot screen go away. In fact, I think this is the case now.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 20:40 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

The uname -a version info the user might query would, by then, be with the kernel subverted again during (early?) boot.

Kernel info pre-boot, or kernel init might be harder to change with Secure Boot, but that doesn't get shown anymore by default. Fedora doesn't even mention version info in the default bootloader UI anymore.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 21:25 UTC (Tue) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

> Probably there would be a magic key (escape or F1 or something) to make the pretty boot screen go away. In fact, I think this is the case now.

Escape will toggle Plymouth. Since it's on a TTY, pretty much any arrow or function key will generate '^[', so they all work :P .

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 10, 2013 10:16 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (1 responses)

Oh, and yes, it has been a good debate. Thanks :). Hope some of my more terse posts didn't come over as too abrasive!

Re the risks and our outlook. I do understand that some phones aren't locked down, and this is a selling point in some segments. I can understand why you see this as progressive and hopeful. However, I think that's a short-term view of things.

Look at the long-term of computing. Over my lifetime, computers have become ever more closed and user-hostile. When I was very young, all computers had full programming information publically available, from peripheral hardware, to the CPU, to the software environment. Often these were supplied with the computer by default. Some computers even came with full schematics for the board and/or CPU, even the entire system. As time progressed, the programming information available became more limited. Vendors tried to restrict the information even more. Most systems today, even ostensibly "open" ones, tend to have many components that are not documented. Sometimes even CPU software programming interfaces are kept hidden. Further, vendors have even tried to control what software can be run at all, using a variety of schemes.

The phones you speak of that are not locked are still, from my perspective, extraordinarily closed systems. They often contain non-publically-documented CPUs and DSPs. We're in the position where a computer that is touted as being the BBC micro for this era, the "open" hackable computer for today's youth, the raspberry Pi, runs the "open" software only under the control of another, undocumented CPU that requires a proprietary blob to boot it.

From my perspective, "Secure Boot" - which we're agreed is "Restricted Boot" minus 1 bit of information (or policy as someone else put it), with that bit under control of the vendor - is another step down this path of ever more locked-down and inaccessible computing.

Your perspective clearly is more optimistic than mine though. ;)

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 10, 2013 12:03 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

And yeah, I'm bunching together a number of issues here under "inaccessible" computing. :)

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 19:56 UTC (Tue) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (5 responses)

> At that point, you no longer have a general purpose system.

Some places might want to supply devices to others and ensure that it is indeed *not* a general purpose system for a legitimate reason. The user is not necessarily the owner in all cases (e.g., schools lending students laptops, employers, etc.). I can imagine schools wanting to make sure that no student can overwrite required software on the machine (possible excuses) and for IT support savings. This is "Restricted Boot" as far as the physical user of the machine is concerned, but "Secure Boot" from the actual owner's point of view. As far as vendors doing "Restricted Boot", yes, that's not good. However, *owners* being able to enforce "Restricted Boot" is not necessarily a bad thing.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 10, 2013 6:43 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (4 responses)

That's one legitimate use-case, agreed. With that in mind is why I wrote "user-owner" in some previous comments. :)

Personally, I'm happy to forego this use-case. I don't think the non-owner-user should necessarily be limited from using the device either. Further, generally it'd be better to keep restrict sensitive software to stay on owner-controlled servers as much as possible, rather than rely on "Restricted Boot", from a security perspective. When the device is returned, the owner can wipe and re-install.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 10, 2013 14:08 UTC (Wed) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (3 responses)

> When the device is returned, the owner can wipe and re-install.

How do you know that you didn't just install to some malicious hypervisor? That's what Secure Boot helps with. With a blue pill virus, you have to wipe BIOS to be sure you are running what you installed. And if the user had full access, that's certainly a possibility.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 10, 2013 20:30 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Yes, "Secure Boot" would make "blue pill" harder, and provide a window during which to be able to detect OS subversion. However, you don't need "Secure Boot" to wipe & re-install - firmware usually provides a way to do this independent of any existing media.

If you say the firmware could be exploited then "Secure Boot" might not help either, if there is any unsigned, modifiable data that is parsed by the firmware. The firmware then may be as open to re-exploitation as the base OS.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 10, 2013 20:33 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Oh, the Linux foundation shim loader should make blue pill attacks viable, even with "Secure Boot". So we'll see how long it stays signed and useable...

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 10, 2013 21:36 UTC (Wed) by PaXTeam (guest, #24616) [Link]

> How do you know that you didn't just install to some malicious hypervisor?

hypervisors are trivial to detect, no need for SB.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 5:26 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (2 responses)

Oh, on sand-boxing. Fully agreed with such technologies. These seem to be the best way we have to secure our software - by limiting and controlling the environment it is run on.

However, clearly, this does NOT require that the main OS environment be the one that is restricted, limited, sand-boxed, etc.. through things like Secure Boot.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 15:24 UTC (Tue) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (1 responses)

I'm not sure I'd use the words restriction, limitation or sand-box, as it can't prevent you from using the machine in any way you want, it just defines a signature checking and validation like Tripwire but with a way to update the database securely and a policy to not load files that haven't come through the owner's defined process.

Garrett: Secure Boot and Restricted Boot

Posted Apr 9, 2013 15:51 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

The Secure Boot code, and the signing infrastructure brought in for Secure Boot can become Restricted Boot, if some platform flips the equivalent of a bit of information (see, e.g., the MS Surface ARM "Secure Boot", or future platforms), do you agree on that?

If that abstract bit is flipped, it will be the "Secure Boot" code that stops you booting your own software, and restricts you to approved software. (Unless you have the expertise handy to the exploit the software - I don't).

And still I havn't seen any convincing explaination for how this code helps protect me against those who /do/ exploit software regularly, for fun & profit.