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Internet Security Moving Toward 'White List'
Posted by
Zonk
on Wed Sep 19, 2007 02:08 AM
from the instead-of-the-other-way-around dept.
from the instead-of-the-other-way-around dept.
ehud42 writes "According to Symantec, 'Internet security is headed toward a major reversal in philosophy, where a 'white list' which allows only benevolent programs to run on a computer will replace the current 'black list' system' as described in an article on the CBC's site. The piece mentions some issues with fairness to whose program is 'safe' including a comment that judges need to be impartial to open source programs which can change quite rapidly. Would this work? The effort to maintain black lists is becoming so daunting that white lists may be an effective solution."
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Works for me! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Or is this a *WOOSH* moment?
Re:Works for me! (Score:5, Insightful)
Surf safe. Use Noscript.
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Re:Agreed... NoScript is outstanding. (Score:5, Interesting)
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What happened to good OS design? (Score:5, Insightful)
E.g., whatever happened to running something in a sandbox, ffs? You can go as far as running something untrusted (e.g., a plugin, ActiveX control, etc) in a virtual box, but even a chroot jail is a good start. It _is_ possible to isolate something to the point where it can't do any harm at all, and can't touch anything except itself. It's also possible to nice it to the point where it only runs when nothing else wants to, so it can't DOS your system that way.
So why doesn't anyone do just that already? E.g., MS could have fixed their own ActiveX crap that way ages ago. Instead we got this baroque, but fundamentally broken, model where you get to decide (or have decided for you based on zones) whether something can't run at all, or can run with full rights as an executable. Except if a malicious one slipped through the cracks, it's still a full executable running on your machine.
Heck, even Java is essentially the wrong way about it as a browser plugin. It tried to implement itself some restrictions which belong in the OS or browser itself, and if the JVM itself is compromised (there _have_ been a couple of JVM vulnerabilities), it can do anything. Kudos to Sun for trying that, but it's a workaround essentially. It shouldn't have been the JVM which does that, it should have been the OS and browser.
Whitelisting is just an extra step in that wrong direction, essentially. Instead of making sure that a malicious thing in the browser can't touch anything else, we're one step further in the baroque, fragile and monumentally work-intensive direction of determining which of them should be allowed. Except again, if something slipped through the cracks, you'll still get screwed so hard you'll walk bow-legged for a week.
Am I the only one who finds that dumb?
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What happened to good OS design? (Score:5, Insightful)
And how many of those good programs are at Sourceforge? What happens when a program at version 2.5.11 goes to version 2.5.12? Will Symantec and company suddenly rush to create the hashes needed to keep up with open-source development?
Implmenting a policy like this can only benefit the large, established developers who'll be publishing software well-known to the whitelisters.
What about programs that run on, say, Java? Will every version of Azureus need to be whitelisted, or just the JVM software that talks directly to the operating system? What about programs that update themselves online? Will the new version still be whitelisted, or will the program stop working until McAfee updates its hash database?
I suppose you could let users add unknown programs to their whitelist, but given that we know many users will click OK in response to any dialog box, that seems to undermine the entire system. If someone's gone to a bogus website to download that "NFL Game Tracker" that was advertised in recent spams, do you think they'll then refuse to add it to their whitelist if given the chance? I think they'll click the OK button and install the Storm trojan.
As other posters have said, there are other, better ways to solve these problems than whitelisting.
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Re:What happened to good OS design? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Also relevant: Capability security.
E Language [erights.org]
Capability Security [wikipedia.org]
Re:What happened to good OS design? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that, like a computer with its Ethernet cable unplugged, an application completely isolated from everything else is useless. For example: at the very least you need to allow an embeddable object (like a Java applet, ActiveX, etc.) to draw itself on screen. To do that you need to enable it to do a large number of GUI-oriented calls. What happens if one of these calls is found to be exploitable by a malicious process? It would be like you did nothing at all for security.
Todays software has *so many* interdependencies that it's practically impossible to segregate everything into neat little boxes whose security can be managed individually. For example, a modern Windows application can (and often does) interact with a large number of subsystems that have been, and still are, found fallible, which fall into these broad categories:
The obvious "solution" is: blame Microsoft - it's bad design practice to enable so many possible interactions throughout the system. But this would mean that users won't be able to use such nifty things like "live" copy & paste throughout their applications (OLE), Explorer shell extensions (like WinZip), unified database drivers (ODBC, OLE, ADO), etc. -- and all of these things are selling points (AND, unsurprisingly, these are some of the more important things users miss when they try to use Linux). If you try to do it partially, for example disable OLE calls from ActiveX controls, business users will be angry because their embedded ActiveX applications will stop working.
And if you DO try to lock everything down, you'll get hordes of angry users complaining about needing to click "Allow" every time they move the mouse pointer :)
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
E.g., whatever happened to running something in a sandbox, ffs? You can go as far as running something untrusted (e.g., a plugin, ActiveX control, etc) in a virtual box, but even a chroot jail is a good start. It _is_ possible to isolate something to the point where it can't do any harm at all, and can't touch anything except itself. It's also possible to nice it to the point where it only runs when nothing else wants to, so it can't DOS your system that way.
It's always possible to "break" that, though, by compromising the container itself. While I agree that, in principle, this is a good idea, there's too much that can go wrong. Having a whitelist of some sort could possibly help a little here in that we could ensure that the container modules are safe.
So why doesn't anyone do just that already? E.g., MS could have fixed their own ActiveX crap that way ages ago. Instead we got this baroque, but fundamentally broken, model where you get to decide (or have decided for you based on zones) whether something can't run at all, or can run with full rights as an executable. Except if a malicious one slipped through the cracks, it's still a full executable running on your machine.
Because there will always be that one application that needs access to more than one zone. Take, for instance, a web-based virus scanner. Sure, you can isolate it within a container, but then how does it s
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
...application that needs access to more than one zone. Take, for instance, a web-based virus scanner...
There have been several of these in the comments today in discussions about sandboxes or other methods of restricting apps for security reasons: "what about app bar that needs to do bar and baz? It can't work in this context." How many of these apps are conceived in a world where they're required? The web based virus scanner seems to be one of these. What exactly is the point of a web based virus scanner? Its relying on a potentially compromised machine to reveal things about itself. That's next to useles
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all your VM thing is a bit of a pipe dream. People are already upset about the cost of Windows. Do you think they are going to be happy about having to purchase multiple copies AND licenses for a VM? Tack on all the latest licensing issues and limited install issues and you have a recipe for great fun. Nevermind that its only been relatively recently that hardware has made this much of a feasable possibili
Oh, man, I just thought of this one, too (Score:4, Funny)
N00B: [sobbing hysterically]
GEEK:Yes, it will, Precious, won't it? It will get the hose!
N00B: Okay... okay... okay. Mister, if you let me go, I won't - I won't press charges I promise. See, my mom is a real important woman... I guess you already know that.
GEEK: Now it places the browser in the chroot jail.
N00B: Please! Please I wanna go home! I wanna go home please!
GEEK: It places the browser in the chroot jail.
N00B: I wanna see my mommy! Please I wanna see my...
GEEK: Put the fucking browser in the jail!
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who uses a black list? (Score:4, Funny)
Follow the money (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Follow the money (Score:4, Informative)
White listing is not about someone approving the list for you, it's just a generic mechanism that allows YOU to white list.
More explanations for a security expert here: The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security [ranum.com].
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Not going to happen (Score:5, Interesting)
Can someone send me a list of all IPv4 hosts which are not malicious? k thanx bye.
PS. please can you also send me an update whenever a new machine is compromised?
Re:Not going to happen (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Not going to happen (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Not going to happen (Score:5, Funny)
Also check to see if he's sharing any porn. You never know. You might have similar tastes.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
127.0.0.0/8
Where are the Web Safety basics ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Q: Where has the Internet failed?
A: Its main proponents and enthusiasts ignored Drivers' Ed for the info-superhighway. They didn't teach people how to use web browser and email programs, didn't show how to read a URL and pay attention to the protocol and domain, nor instill the habit of mousing-over links to see where they go beforehand. Teaching people about the padlock symbol should have also included how to deal with SSL certificate alerts.
The result of this neglect is that people cannot recognize authenticity on the Internet, so the value of the Internet's "currency" is spoiling. Imagine if people weren't clued-in on how to authenticate a $20 bill: Over time only certain government and corporate entities would be trusted to handle currency to prevent spoiling by counterfeiters.
Our job as Internet cognoscenti is to keep correcting the people around you on the right way to use Web and email. Granted, this is not a cure-all given the other major factor here (Windows malware) but its several steps in the right direction. This stuff is not hard.
The alternative is an Internet-II re-worked around big corporations and government sites through a whitelist enforced by Trusted Computing remote attestation. Don't think they won't be opportunistic enough to scare the public into that corner.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine if people weren't clued-in on how to authenticate a $20 bill: Over time only certain government and corporate entities would be trusted to handle currency to prevent spoiling by counterfeiters.
Recognizing counterfeit money is a specialization within the FBI. Also, there are few fake $20 bills, not worth the effort. They usually counterfeit $100s. And ever been in a casino where they authenticate with that special marker? This is because you can't tell unless you've got years of experience. We've all probably handled counterfeit money in your lifetime without ever knowing.
Our job as Internet cognoscenti is to keep correcting the people around you on the right way to use Web and email.
That job isn't paying enough. Let me know when it gets past $50 bucks an hour. Until then I've got paying work and whe
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That job isn't paying enough. Let me know when it gets past $50 bucks an hour. Until then I've got paying work and when I'm not doing that I'd like to spend time with the family.
You are a Web Consumer, not a citizen then. You all want services in the form of shiny things you can click on and pay for to grease the way. Well the address and status bars are the most important factors in web security, and they aren't linked to paid consumer service industries or other notions of boutique consumeri
Addressing malware. (Score:5, Informative)
Do not engage in filename-mangling! If a file is named "apicture.jpg.exe" then it MUST be displayed that way and must not undergo any automatic alteration (falsification) that, for instance, makes an executable appear as data.
Additionally, all executable files are shown with a red warning flag whenever that filename is displayed by the desktop, file manager or file dialog. This is important, as Windows will execute files ending in ".com" and this suffix is a part of most websites the user trusts; clicking on a "monster.com" file is natural so another indicator is necessary to cut down on trojans.
Make web site scripting purely an opt-in affair by default. This goes for anything else the html engine is used for, like chat clients.
No more "Open this file" option in download dialogs. Period. If the user cannot manage opening the file themselves from the regular UI, then hopefully they will get stuck and sign up for an introductory computer class.
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Re:Where are the Web Safety basics ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Once you lower the bar, there's no raising it back up again.
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What about Javascript? (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole idea of a program being a quasi-static executable installed locally is starting to seem quaint.
Is it me (Score:5, Interesting)
Or is this going to really screw small-scale windows developers?
Seems to me to be a blatant attempt by the big boys to lock users into their software (or software from companies they have an arrangement with. Since the majority of users probably won't know how to disable this 'feature', they will have less choice, and therefore higher costs.
Re:Is it me (Score:5, Interesting)
Though it does seem like they are position themselves to be the gatekeepers of all software, good or bad. Want to run a program? Don't ask the user, ask Symantec. People wont stand for that though. There is a certain level of control over a computer most users are willing to give up in certain circumstances to the OS or an outside party or the like, but this is total control. Even novice users would probably find some piece of software they wanted to run that wasn't in the system and get annoyed at symantec for breaking their computer while more technical users would likely never want to be early adopters of something like this.
not only that, but I wonder.... wouldn't the list of "good" software be unimaginably larger than the list of malicious trojans and viruses?
Think about that number for a second. The only way they would ever look good would be if every single one of the users only ever ran software on the list. So for each user that uses dozens of applications, if even just one of those dozens isn't on the list, they are going to blame symantec.
sadly i don't think this will stop them from trying to pull this off anyways and at least getting a small userbase of complete novices and maybe corporate IT depts that want to lock down the drones.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Unlikely to work (Score:3, Interesting)
With a whitelist, the user clicks 'Accept' for everything he runs. Then he's protected until he installs something else.
Blacklists are great since they require yearly subscriptions.
I can see it now (Score:5, Funny)
Are you sure you want to run this application? Yes/No
Are you really sure you want to run this application? Yes/No
I mean, if it's not Microsoft, it's not really "official", what makes you sure you should be running this application. You probably shouldn't. There's a nice Microsoft alternative which is "official". Wouldn't you like to download that instead? Yes/No
Re:I can see it now (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, if it's not Microsoft, it's not really "official", what makes you sure you should be running this application. You probably shouldn't. There's a nice Microsoft alternative which is "official". Wouldn't you like to download that instead? Yes/No
You forgot option 3:
[T]hanks, but I already did download an alternative to Microsoft.
Seriously, though, how can anyone possibly believe this could ever work? The computing world is driven by countless specialist applications, many of them written in-house by small businesses, or just by individuals to solve a specific problem they have. It's pretty obvious that no organisation could possibly whitelist all of this stuff effectively, without having some sort of automated system that every malicious developer in the world could abuse just as easily.
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Re:I can see it now (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:I can see it now (Score:5, Funny)
"This software has been signed by Microsoft. Are you sure you want to install?"
(yes)
"This software has been signed by Microsoft. Are you sure you want to install?"
(yes)
"Proceeding will void your warranty. Are you sure?"
(yes)
"Well, it's your funeral. Please wait."
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This is the stupidest idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Again? (Score:5, Insightful)
We know how this ended (certificates given left and right without proper verification).
Now they try again with new certificates, which are more expensive.
So that's about that part.
What about site filters. Whitelisting sites in security suites has got to be the dumbest idea I've heard in a long time. Last I checked there's like billions of pages out there, some of which safe and some not.
So now that we find it impossible to cover the entire subset of malicious pages, what do we do? Yes, we try to cover the even great subset of legal pages.
This will either end with many small harmless sites filtered out, or sites having to pay ransom to all security suite vendors out there to get whitelisted or something of a similar nature.
Not happening.
what about the small developer? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd be interested in knowing how they deal with the fast release cycle of open source software (excluding mine, oh for a 48 hour day...).
I'm pretty keen on the whitelist idea though. If nothing else it'll make malware more inventive, they'll start imitating the fingerprints of validated software.
High time too (Score:5, Interesting)
It is a lot of work to maintain any whitelist of any significant size. But the reason you do it is because it's a lot more work to maintain any blacklist of any significant size, and even more work still to clear up the mess after something slips the net.
I thnk residential ISPs will be the first - I'd be surprised if it was even possible to connect outside your own ISPs network. Email through their SMTP server, web access through their proxy, sucks if you want any other service your ISP doesn't provide. Some of the more expensive ISPs may set up some sort of "sign a disclaimer and we'll let you do anything, but we reserve the right to pull the plug if we see so much as a single malicious packet" system.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Will only be useful for people who dont experiment (Score:3, Insightful)
For a private user with a mostly static set of application, it should still work but expect the occasional blocked program.
For developers and the rest of the
And why would I trust Symantecs opinion? (Score:5, Insightful)
This leads to the conclusion that all other "security"-companies where either in bed with Sony, or that their "security"-products are utterly useless. I'm not sure, which is worse.
So why again should I give a rats ass about the opinion of those guys, when it comes to security?
The first layer of defense is a white-list (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that there are lots of people / large software monopolists in the world who don't know how to code well, and this creates security flaws which cause this authorised code to do things on behalf of other code, including possibly executing arbitrary.
This code is then theoretically built on top of a kernel which attempts to restrict what the code can do even if it is executed (of course, often there are flaws here too, and often the exploited code is run with more privileges than it should have, so the entire system can be compromised).
Virus scanners and other security software of this kind are supposed to provide an extra, reactive layer of defense on top of the existing proactive measure for anything which slips through the cracks. Suggesting that they be turned into another white-list is therefore not a logical suggestion, and implies that they are not being entirely honest:
* They might just want to create hype to utilise unsuspecting journalists to sell more of their products for them.
* Perhaps this is part of another Digital Restrictions Management style plot to take the decisions of what runs on computers from computer owners and give it to some central pseudo-authority so they can (mis)use the power for their own purposes.
Whitelist keeper = make money (Score:5, Insightful)
After all, businesses would be willing to pay to get their products into said whitelist, while one hardly expects virus makers to pay for getting their creations into a blacklist.
Of course, i'm sure the Symantec guys are naturally not at all thinking of all those extra $$$
No longer a computer (Score:4, Insightful)
Developers will be the first to notice: you can still write and compile a program, but you cannot test it. But the typical user will also be affected: what about the useful firefox extension you like? Bummer, not on the list. Want to use facebook? Sorry, the javascript in the new version is not approved.
The white list is a pretty futile anyway, because you can program on several levels. Javascript is only an example: what if the browser is approved, but your javascript code does nasty things? Or what about a heap overflow in the browser? Suddenly you are running custom code, but how is the white list going to notice this?
It's like this for mobiles, and it sucks (Score:3, Informative)
When making apps in Java/J2ME or Symbian (e.g. for Nokia nSeries), you need to have the client signed by a third party in order to use native resources like memory efficiently. While the signing process it not technically the same as a white list, is has similar consequences: You are hindered in successfully demonstrating your software for potential customers until some unknown person has expressed his subjective opinion about it.
I know cause we make such an application right now, and during development we're screwed, as we can't get around these limitations even on our development devices. It's no good.
IF this idea catches on, real world developers need to test the god damn system before they enforce it on people.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Many firewalls use the whitelist principle. Eg, Zonealarm. When you install it, nothing is approved. As any program tries to access hte network, you get a popup asking you to approve one-time-only, or to put the program on the trusted list. Seems to work quite well, 5 years, and none of the PCs I or my family use have had any security issues.
But it does require some judgement. The stereotypical
You maybe more right than some realize (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, "trusted computing" had all that DRM stuff and crypto signatures and all components authenticating themselves and their drivers, but essentially that's what you need to have a bullet-proof whitelist.
- E.g., if you don't have a strong hash to be sure that it indeed is the program you think you're running, and it's an untampered executable, then you don't really know what you're running. (E.g., if you were to do it just by name, and you allow, say, "WoW.exe", then you'll also run a virus attachment called "WoW.exe" just as cheerfully.)
- E.g., if you don't make the system startup itself bullet-proof, people will use spoof drivers and whatnot to compromise that security
So basically we're essentially back to the same Palladium shit that we ranted and raved against as the great Satan. It's what MS wanted in Vista in the first place, but apparently realized grudgingly that noone else wanted. And _of_ _course_ Vista would be on the list. In fact, better than that, Vista was supposed to be the one enforcing it. (Which, if you think about it, is pretty much needed. If the OS doesn't do it, and doesn't double-check its startup and components at that, any other link down the chain is not guaranteed to be guaranteed enough to be the uncompromised.)
So now it's snuck back under the same claim that you need it to protect you from the evil hackers. Right.
Well, the problems are the same any way anyone wants to slice it. E.g.,
- it essentially discourages running stuff you compiled yourself. (Just changing the options you compile a kernel with, for example, is enough to change the hash, if the hash is any good. So essentially the only safe thing a "trusted computing" system should conclude there is that the system itself has been tampered with and is no longer secure or trustable.)
- it places an undue burden on small time developpers and hobbyists. I know if I was distributing a small utility on sourceforge, I'd be annoyed if I had to re-certify it every time I refactor something or fix some obscure bug. Doubly so if it costs anything to get it certified, which would likely be the case if a commercial entity is doing it. Getting it virus scanned, ran through some automated heuristics, hashed, and put on the list, can take some time and infrastructure and a paid employees time costs money.
And, frankly, even if it was something as trivial as 10$, why would I pay it for something that makes me no money? It'd be like ROI except without the R. And if you want it thoroughly dissected and certified that it 100% can't possibly be a virus, then it'll cost a heck of a lot more than that.
- it can be used to shaft you the other way around too. A program can authenticate the system it runs on, and some might even need to. (E.g., I sure hope an anti-virus utility pipes up loudly if it thinks it runs on a system where the OS itself has been compromised. E.g., I sure hope a banking applet pipes up loudly if it runs in a browser that's been compromised.) So there's nothing to keep someone from making a program that refuses to run in Wine or a flash applet that refuses to work in Mozilla.
And if you think noone other than MS would ever do that, think again. There was this recent story even on Slashdot about webmasters who explicitly don't want Mozilla users because they block their ads.
Etc.
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