On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 04:21:10PM -0400, Michael S. Gilbert wrote: > > i think that any flaw that allows an attacker to elevate his pwnage from > root to hidden should always be considered a grave security issue.
Your argument sounds like the one used by RIAA, MPAA etc, based on the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause, to keep things like open source dvd players illegal. Just because something can be used for malicious purposes, doesn't mean its existance is a bad thing. There are reasons for /dev/mem to exist, and why you might want to manipulate kernel state through it. Many of these do not involve rootkits. The support for dynamically loadable kernel modules in Linux can be abuses similarly. Does that make it a "grave security issue"? But as Dann pointed out, we'll have CONFIG_STRICT_DEVMEM in the future to help minimize exposure. If you want to continue this discussion, I propose to do it outside the BTS. noah
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