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Blizzard Exempt from iOS and MacOS Security Sandbox

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Re: Blizzard Exempt from iOS and MacOS Security Sandbox

#2
I recall a story of how the windows 95 team (or the like) was crazy dedicated to backwards compatibility, so they had a check to see if the user was running Roller Coaster Tycoon and if so, disabled virtual memory so the game would run.

Though I'd like to know more details, like:

* Why does blizzard need to run in the sandbox on Mac OS X? The app sandbox is opt-in (though required for App Store apps)

* Can anyone set their team ID to blizzard's?

* Are blizzard games attack vectors?

Re: Blizzard Exempt from iOS and MacOS Security Sandbox

#4
post #2

I recall a story of how the windows 95 team (or the like) was crazy dedicated to backwards compatibility, so they had a check to see if the user was running Roller Coaster Tycoon and if so, disabled virtual memory so the game would run. Though I'd like to know more details, like: * Why does blizzard need to run in the sandbox on Mac OS X? The app sandbox is opt-in (though required for App Store apps) * Can anyone set…

Interesting point. Never heard of any program impersonating 'Warden' for malicious purposes but it seems possible.

Re: Blizzard Exempt from iOS and MacOS Security Sandbox

#6
Tweet has been deleted: https://twitter.com/i0n1c/status/738258436161449984

I deleted the tweet with the picture of the sandbox because people start hyping it up without linking the clarification.

And the "clarification" tweet: https://twitter.com/i0n1c/status/738084828202053633

For those late to the party: the sandbox bypass exception for Blizzard only affects the access() family of syscalls - probably harmless

Edit: Original tweet screenshot http://imgur.com/c8RnYjo (it's still in Google cache… for now).

Re: Blizzard Exempt from iOS and MacOS Security Sandbox

#7
post #2

I recall a story of how the windows 95 team (or the like) was crazy dedicated to backwards compatibility, so they had a check to see if the user was running Roller Coaster Tycoon and if so, disabled virtual memory so the game would run. Though I'd like to know more details, like: * Why does blizzard need to run in the sandbox on Mac OS X? The app sandbox is opt-in (though required for App Store apps) * Can anyone set…

> * Can anyone set their team ID to blizzard's?

No, at least not for apps that are distributed on the official channels and signed with an official developer cert.

> * Are blizzard games attack vectors?

All games are, savegame manipulation is often the first step towards jailbreaking a game console.

Re: Blizzard Exempt from iOS and MacOS Security Sandbox

#8
post #6

Tweet has been deleted: https://twitter.com/i0n1c/status/738258436161449984 I deleted the tweet with the picture of the sandbox because people start hyping it up without linking the clarification. And the "clarification" tweet: https://twitter.com/i0n1c/status/738084828202053633 For those late to the party: the sandbox bypass exception for Blizzard only affects the access() family of syscalls - probably harmless Edit…

I Google'd and here is one result, showing at least one theoretical security vulnerability of access(): http://stackoverflow.com/a/14333217/3650441

If an attacker knows what files Blizzard is calling access() on, they could likely use this exploit and execute arbitrary code.

Re: Blizzard Exempt from iOS and MacOS Security Sandbox

#9
post #3

There are a lot of checks for specific apps in the Cocoa framework. It's pretty much what the undocumented CFExecutableLinkedOnOrAfter() is for (sometimes called in conjunction with a check for a specific bundle name).

Do you have examples?

Re: Blizzard Exempt from iOS and MacOS Security Sandbox

#10
post #6

Tweet has been deleted: https://twitter.com/i0n1c/status/738258436161449984 I deleted the tweet with the picture of the sandbox because people start hyping it up without linking the clarification. And the "clarification" tweet: https://twitter.com/i0n1c/status/738084828202053633 For those late to the party: the sandbox bypass exception for Blizzard only affects the access() family of syscalls - probably harmless Edit…

I Google'd and here is one result, showing at least one theoretical security vulnerability of access(): http://stackoverflow.com/a/14333217/3650441 If an attacker knows what files Blizzard is calling access() on, they could likely use this exploit and execute arbitrary code.

The existence of the inherent time-of-check versus time-of-use hole with access is a several steps away from "execute arbitrary code". The example given presumes you are using access on crontab (and that the app can write to it).
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