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Two malicious Python libraries caught stealing SSH and GPG keys

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Re: Two malicious Python libraries caught stealing SSH and GPG keys

#301

Post by rtpg »

tialaramex wrote: post #181
MadWombat wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wouldn't it be better if Paramiko was obliged to access your keys via the agent? That's just kicking the can down the road. You get the same exact problem, but with the agent permissions rather than the actual keys. The problem is "I installed paramiko and I know what it does and I want it to access my SSH credentials, but I don't want evillib123 to access my SSH credentials even though I have installed it as well…

UAC interrupts you, which is bad. UAC thinks that a thing happening is so important you need to acknowledge it. Everybody's going to learn to click past. I'm talking about notifications not interruptions. At most a toast message, much more likely just a small indicator lights up. Not a big deal - when you'd expect it. Think about the turn indicator on the dashboard of your car. When you indicate one way or the other…

People act like UAC leads to banner blindness but I don't think that really holds up.

In the mobile space you get prompts for soooo many things, and loads of people see "ask for location data" and say no when they think it shouldn't be used! The system works!

Re: Two malicious Python libraries caught stealing SSH and GPG keys

#302

Post by jbergens »

greggman2 wrote: post #13

I don't know what the solution is but it feels like this is a much bigger issue and we need some rethinking of how OSes work by default. Apple has taken some steps it seems the last 2 MacOS updates where they block access to certain folders for lots of executables until the user specifically gives that permission. Unfortunately for things like python the permission is granted to the Terminal app so once given, all pr…

Windows have had locks for specific things for many years. They also created a new model with sandboxed runtimes för Windows Store Apps but those are not very popular.

Yarn, a ja package manager, tried to forbid any code execution during installs. That may be a good idea. At least show a warning or require an extra flag before executing anything.

Re: Two malicious Python libraries caught stealing SSH and GPG keys

#303

Post by scbrg »

Carpetsmoker wrote: post #261
ddevault wrote: post #44

This is part of why I install my Python dependencies from downstream Linux distro repos. I never use virtualenv. If a distro is missing a package I need, it's a simple process to put it together, and the additional steps and checks built into the process stop close to 100% of these issues. Getting a human here also lets you do things like patch out telemetry or other anti-features. Software repositories without a hum…

> Software repositories without a human review process are a bloody stupid idea. What review process? Do people actually review/audit the code? Usually they don't. All it tells you that at least one person though it looked "okay enough" to package it, based on unclear criteria. It's most certainly not a "review process".

Which, honestly, would have been quite sufficient in this case.

I can't remember ever having seen anything like this in Debian, for instance.

Re: Two malicious Python libraries caught stealing SSH and GPG keys

#304

Post by daemin »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #169
geofft wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Solid SELinux policy" is really the hard part there. When I pip install paramiko, I do, in fact, want it to have access to my SSH keys. When I pip install ansible, I want ansible to be able to shell out to OpenSSH to use my keys. If I write custom Python code that calls gpg, I want that custom code to be able to load libraries that I've pip installed without the gpg subprocess being blocked from loading my keys. If…

This is why I don't think this is an OS problem. I think it's a developer mindset problem. Dependencies are bad. Every single dependency in your code is a liability, a security loophole, a potential legal risk, and a time sink. Every dependency needs to be audited and evaluated, and all the changes on every update reviewed. Otherwise who knows what got injected into your code? Evaluating each dependency for potential…

The other question to ask yourself is if you want the dependency as a visible external thing, or do you want it cut & pasted into your code?

Just saying that "Dependencies are bad" means people are more likely to cut and paste that algorithm or bit of code into your application rather than taking it from some sort of package. In this sense you also do not know that it is a dependency, and you do not get any updates or bug fixes for it either.

Have to be careful about those unintended consequences there.

Re: Two malicious Python libraries caught stealing SSH and GPG keys

#305

Post by codedokode »

simias wrote: post #232
codedokode wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes because otherwise one user could configure a fake printer and see what others are printing. Although for one-user system this doesn't make much sense.

Right, that's the problem IMO, the usual way processes are segregated on Linux harks back to the day of UNIX mainframes shared across dozens of users. It still makes some sense on servers where you want to isolate, say, the database from the web server from postfix from sshd but it's almost entirely inadequate for single-user desktop computers. On my desktop root doesn't really matter, if my user gets compromised it'…

Yes, but if we will run every application under different user (which is a sane idea, Android does it and I use it for several apps) then we come back to the problem of not allowing program X to reconfigure a printer. So I think that we still need a confirmation dialog, but without a password.

Re: Two malicious Python libraries caught stealing SSH and GPG keys

#306

Post by slavik81 »

htns wrote: post #95
greggman2 wrote: post #13

I don't know what the solution is but it feels like this is a much bigger issue and we need some rethinking of how OSes work by default. Apple has taken some steps it seems the last 2 MacOS updates where they block access to certain folders for lots of executables until the user specifically gives that permission. Unfortunately for things like python the permission is granted to the Terminal app so once given, all pr…

Qubes OS already exists! It's been perfectly usable for more than a decade now. It can't be recommended enough: https://www.qubes-os.org/ Sadly "modern security awareness" doesn't seem to really amount to anything, and existing solutions go unused. %90 of this "malware library" problem too would have been avoided if package repositories just required all packages to be signed with keys on hardware dongles. Ruby and p…

Why? If I sign a package, that's proof I endorse the contents... but how do you know I'm not a malware author?

Re: Two malicious Python libraries caught stealing SSH and GPG keys

#307

Post by marcus_holmes »

danShumway wrote: post #280
marcus_holmes wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My argument is that user behaviour proves that this solution isn't actually a solution. It shifts the blame, but it doesn't solve the problem. Developers will just allow the bad code access to the things it says it needs, because it says it needs them. Meanwhile we have another sandbox layer to deal with, which isn't good. We need to reduce the proliferation of dependencies, and only use them for important things, to…

> We need to reduce the proliferation of dependencies, and only use them for important things What you're proposing here is infinitely harder than teaching users to be responsible with permissions. If you can't teach a developer not to grant code access to everything it asks for, you are not going to be able to teach them to install fewer dependencies. It just won't happen, it's completely unrealistic. A lot of the s…

Because a dependency isn't a service. You're talking about dependencies as if they're standalone services that you consume. I think that's probably the predominant attitude at the moment, so sandboxing dependencies to turn them into (effectively) standalone services that you consume might work.

But I don't use dependencies like that. I'm mostly just importing useful functions from a library. Having to sandbox that function away from the rest of my code is not going to work. I'll end up copy/pasting the code into my project to avoid that.

Re: Two malicious Python libraries caught stealing SSH and GPG keys

#308

Post by JakeMimoni »

andybak wrote: post #67
JakeMimoni wrote: post #59

We just recently launched a free tool that helps python developers prevent exactly these type of issues. Feel free to check it out: https://trustd.dev we work preventatively, so as you download packages, the tool will analyse it and tell you of any issues found. We’re looking to collaborate with devs to work out what features should be next.

First question is what the hell does this mean: > As you install open-source packages, trustd will scan them and provide you with instant feedback on any problems. What kind of scanning? Algorithmic? Based on human review? If we're outsourcing trust to you, I'd want to know a lot more. And "we use Slack instead of a dashboard" doesn't sound terribly appealing. I'd want a dashboard and a range of notification options…

might not have explained it the best I could have haha..

It means as you pull packages in from NPM et al, the analysis goes to work, telling you of any known vulnerabilities, or any license in-compliance.

With regards to Slack, we are hearing that a lot, it isn't the best mechanism for providing this feedback, and we are working on alternatives now, including email.

Happy to answer any more questions on here or reach out jake@418sec.com

Re: Two malicious Python libraries caught stealing SSH and GPG keys

#310

Post by chopin »

tialaramex wrote: post #185
MadWombat wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wouldn't it be better if Paramiko was obliged to access your keys via the agent? That's just kicking the can down the road. You get the same exact problem, but with the agent permissions rather than the actual keys. The problem is "I installed paramiko and I know what it does and I want it to access my SSH credentials, but I don't want evillib123 to access my SSH credentials even though I have installed it as well…

> You get the same exact problem, but with the agent permissions rather than the actual keys. This is also importantly wrong in a subtle way. If evillib123 steals a SSH private key, that key isn't private any more and my only option is to revoke the key and make a new one. Nothing else works, they have the key and can authenticate as me as often as they like whenever they like until that key's access is revoked. But…

It's a bit like intents on Android where you also don't get direct access to (some) resources. I like that line of thinking very much.
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