On Tue, 2004-08-24 at 22:26:29 +0200, Michel Arboi proclaimed...
No, this comes from a security *giver*. Believe it or not, I never got
a cent for what I did for this project. I did not ask either.
Consider me as a fucking communist if this pleases you.
What's wrong with the communists?
I have too much Mediterranean blood.
Cute.
In fact, there is no such thing as "absolute" security. And applying
general principles is good as long as it does not hurt... other
general principles. For example, complexity is the enemy of
security. Splitting Nessus into several parts will increase the code
complexity and the number of bugs.
And also, general principles are not worth a good risk analysis.
Yes thanks, I think we're all aware of this. Nor was I trying to
school you in computer security, I was simply relating my point for
those folks here who don't get why the hell we'd want privsep in the
first place. Clearly, if you've written more than a hello, world,
you understand how privsep would be beneficial.
I have already said what I considered the main risks about Nessus. The
soft point is the OpenSSL library, because it is the biggest and more
complex part of code. Protect the client / server communication with
TCP wrappers, and you'll solve most of the problems.
The point I'm making is that I'd like to see more protections
against the folks who are actually authorized to use it; do I trust
Joe-Admin who scans his network 15 times an hour (his /20, at that)
to not be an idiot? No.
Yes, OpenSSL is one large conglameration of mish-mash. But hey,
that's a whole other story - I'm not looking for you to tell me
where the problems-by-proxy are.
If the OpenSSL client code is vulnerable to some "reverse attack", the
bad guy could take control of the nessusd server. Whether he is root or
not does not matter: he can nuke your whole network. Privsep won't
help.
So you're saying that role permissions in nessus do not actually
work?
So what? You want to do it for Nessus? Submit a patch and stop pissing
me off. This is _free_ and _open_ software. You are allowed to code,
to test, to suggest new ideas, not to insult me.
Indeed I am, and I'm working on some stuff to get at least the
listener privsep'ed.
No. Not clearly.
I have large glasses.
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