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‘Zero-click’ hacks are growing in popularity

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Re: ‘Zero-click’ hacks are growing in popularity

#271

Post by vbphprubyjsgo »

malka wrote: post #35
littlestymaar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point. Humans cannot write bug-free software[1]. Then if you're soft has security-related things to do (like credential management etc.) you cannot be sure there won't be a way to bypass it. But here we're talking almost exclusively about remote execution bugs coming from memory-safety issues , which are indeed preventable. Any managed language does the trick, and if they are not fast enough for yo…

How are you sure there is no bug being unfound in rust itself ?

No post body was provided.

Re: ‘Zero-click’ hacks are growing in popularity

#272

Post by dagmx »

emerongi wrote: post #258
phendrenad2 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't know what you're asking for. In reality, you'll end up replacing C code with memory unsafely with Rust code written by people who understand Rust less than they understand C. The problem? The Rust Evangelism Strike Force always assumes that if you replace a C program with a Rust program, it'll be done by a top-tier expert Rust programmer. If that isn't the case (which it won't be), then the whole thing fall…

I think the only question that matters is how much longer it takes to write a moderately-sized program in Rust vs C. If it takes around the same time, then an average C programmer will probably write code with more bugs than an average Rust programmer. If it takes longer in Rust, the Rust programmer could start taking some seriously unholy shortcuts to meet a deadline, therefore the result could be worse. All code ca…

I've written a few things at work in C/C++ and Rust. I can move much faster in Rust, personally, as long as the pieces of the ecosystem I need are there. Obviously I only speak for myself.

Part of that is because I'm working in code where security is constantly paramount, and trying to reason about a C or C++ codebase is incredibly difficult. Maybe I get lucky and things are using some kind of smart ptr, RAII and/or proper move semantics, but if they're not then I have to think about the entire call chain. In rust I can focus very locally on the logic and not have to try and keep the full codebase in my head

Re: ‘Zero-click’ hacks are growing in popularity

#273

Post by unionpivo »

ReptileMan wrote: post #235
skybrian wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both attacks and defenses have gotten a lot better. Meanwhile, the consequences of hacks keep going up every year. You didn't have viruses disrupting shipping or gas pipelines before, because they didn't depend as much on computers.

You have to be a special kind of naive to not have such infrastructure behind airgap.

> You have to be a special kind of naive to not have such infrastructure behind airgap.

Most of it is not behind air gap. And unless things get a lot worse it wont be.

Proper air gaping is hard, expensive and pain in the ass, on the ongoing basis.

That's why almost none does it. Not even most military systems are air gaped.

Re: ‘Zero-click’ hacks are growing in popularity

#275

Post by radford-neal »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #245
radford-neal wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Programs that would crash when using the memory-safe compiler aren't standards conforming. If you're worried that programs crashing due to bugs can be used for a denial-of-service attack... Well, yes, that is a thing. Low-level OS and device-handling code may need to do something that won't be seen as memory safe, but I expect that for such cases you'd need to do something similarly unsafe (eg, call an assembly-langu…

I brought up ASAN because it's a real thing that already exists and gets run regularly. The broad details of how ASAN is implemented are best summarized in the original paper [1]. The practical short of it is that there are essentially no false negatives in anything remotely approaching real-world use. A malicious attacker could get around it, but any "better algorithm" would still run into the underlying issue that…

From the linked ASAN paper: "...at the relatively low cost of 73% slowdown and 3.4x increased memory usage..."

That's too big a performance hit for production use - much bigger than you would get with the approach I outlined.

I don't agree that any nontrivial C program is nonconformant, at least if you're talking about nonconformance due to invalid memory references. Referencing invalid memory locations is not the sort of thing that good programmers tolerate. (Of course, such references may occur when there are bugs - that's the reason for the run-time check - but not when a well-written program is operating as intended.)

Re: ‘Zero-click’ hacks are growing in popularity

#276

Post by tptacek »

jka wrote: post #260
tptacek wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple spends more on security than all but 2 other industry firms (they may spend more than those 2 as well), and has a comparable computing footprint to those firms. This is a facile complaint.

My comment may have been facile and poorly-argued, sure, but if consumer devices are being sold that can be remotely exploited without user interaction during something as commonplace as rendering images.. surely it's worth considering the potential for structural improvements in industry? Perhaps the associated billions of dollars of spending is indeed the answer, and will translate into measurable improvements. If…

This isn't a facile argument. I might disagree with it --- I think things are more complicated than they seem --- but I can't call it facile.

Re: ‘Zero-click’ hacks are growing in popularity

#277

Post by [deleted] »

tptacek wrote: post #236
ziml77 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was about to say the same thing in response to people claiming security is getting worse. Zero-Click is just another name for a worm. I guess mayyybe you could consider Zero-Click as more like a class of worm whose entry into the system is visible (you can see that you got the strange message or image). And you're definitely right that they are far more rare. Worms used to be nasty is now fast and easily they sprea…

Wormable bugs are a subset of zero-click bugs. Worms are very rare, and always have been, even during "the Summer of Worms".

[deleted]

Re: ‘Zero-click’ hacks are growing in popularity

#278

Post by tptacek »

e40 wrote: post #262
tptacek wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth engaging with the fact that essentially nobody disagrees with this (someone will here, but they don't matter), and that it's not happening not because Apple and Google don't want it to happen, but because it's incredibly, galactically hard to pull off. The Rust talent pool required to transition the entire attack surface of an iPhone from C, C++, and ObjC to Rust (substitute any other memory safe language,…

I honestly don't understand this. If Google or Apple wanted it to happen, they could force those developers to learn Rust. Are you saying the people that wrote the products in question can't learn Rust well enough to achieve the goal?

Start with the fact that practically all software development at Apple and Google would cease for multiple months while people dealt with the Rust learning curve, which is not gentle, and proceed from there to the fact that Rust demands (or, at least, urgently requests) architectural changes from typical programs designed in other languages.

Now: rewrite 20 years worth of code.

Let's make sure we're clear: I agree --- and, further, assert that every other serious person agrees --- that memory safety is where the industry needs to go, urgently.

Re: ‘Zero-click’ hacks are growing in popularity

#279

Post by tptacek »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #264
tptacek wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth engaging with the fact that essentially nobody disagrees with this (someone will here, but they don't matter), and that it's not happening not because Apple and Google don't want it to happen, but because it's incredibly, galactically hard to pull off. The Rust talent pool required to transition the entire attack surface of an iPhone from C, C++, and ObjC to Rust (substitute any other memory safe language,…

They wrote it the first time, didn't they? C isn't special, and training isn't special.

It took decades.
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