Airtight system security with Grsecurity
Seal It!
Security-conscious people dig a deep moat with crocodiles around their homes, hide their furniture in back rooms, and only let visitors into the bathroom if they know the secret password. Grsecurity follows a similarly extreme principle.
A small Linux patch collection called Grsecurity (for Greater Security) transforms the Linux kernel into an extremely untrusting fellow. Grsecurity unleashes a whole package of actions that preemptively block out attackers. Each user is initially treated as a principal source of danger. For example, Grsecurity only allows certain users to call dmesg; it locks the /proc directory, and it prevents access to /dev/kmem, /dev/mem, and /dev/port. Grsecurity also moves applications to a random location in memory (address space layout randomization), and it hides all the kernel threads.
Role-Play
The core of Grsecurity is Role-Based Access Control (RBAC for short), which sits on top of existing rights management. Grsecurity initially deprives all users of their access
rights, even hiding parts of the filesystem from them, and thus allows only the bare necessities. The administrator can then allow specific actions for individual users. Users with similar tasks can be grouped as “roles,” and the admin can then grant additional rights to these roles. For example, the webmaster group needs to start the SSH daemon, but the database administrator group does not.
Read full article as PDF:
Price $2.95
Direct Download
Read full article as PDF:
Price $2.95
Tag Cloud
News
-
An Even Smaller Raspberry Pi
The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced an even smaller version of the tiny computer that will fit into a DIMM slot.
-
Newly Discovered Android Vulnerability Causes Privilege Escalation
A new class of problems lets a malicious app pre-configure an invisible privilege update.
-
Facebook Rolls Out New PHP-like Programming Language
New Hack language adds static typing and other conveniences.
-
Fedora Announces Innovative Crytography Policy System
New crypto policy system will offer easier configuration and more uniform security.
-
Shuttleworth Calls for Declarative Firmware
Ubuntu founder denounces insecurity in proprietary, close-source software blobs.
-
New TLS Attack Takes the S out of HTTPS
Vulnerability affects many Linux web servers
-
Munich Adopts Kolab
The Bavarian capital shuns Microsoft, Google, and other alternatives to implement an open source groupware solution.
-
Canonical Announces Ubuntu Smartphones
Phone vendor partnerships bring Mark Shuttleworth's dream of Ubuntu on a phone a step closer to reality.
-
Piviti Seeks Funding
Donors will get to vote on new features for the free video editor.
-
Debian Tech Committee Votes for systemd
Debian project puts init out to pasture and says no to Ubuntu's Upstart.