https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_Kza6fdkSU So I wanted to highlight this talk from Brad Spengler about the state of Linux security. It's a damning report if you read even a little bit between the lines. And on many levels. As Halvar points out, Android deliberately avoided investing what they knew they needed to invest in platform security in the effort to gather significant early market share, even knowing it would harm their user-base in a multitude of ways. And this kind of philosophical trade off taken by companies filters into the Linux security ecosystem, creating Ogres of various sorts, like Calamity Gannon's corruption of various parts of Hyrule. For example, phones often run on an older Linux kernel, which means there is economic incentive to backport features and security fixes to those kernels, or pretend you can. Likewise, much of the effort of the Linux security community is focused on KASLR, which Brad points out, is largely a waste of time. He also talks about Syzkiller, automated exploit generation, and a host of other things. Well worth a listen!

This is possibly true, although an Android vs iOS comparison here might be more apt, from a technical perspective? But what Brad truly nails in his talk is an overarching culture around the process of Linux kernel development that is decidedly non-optimal when it comes to security. For example, when proposing security features, a healthy community would take a suggested patch and debate "What were you trying to accomplish? What is the best way to implement that?" and the Linux community instead has a series of formatting gateways, and then a rejection. (According to the talk - I am not a Linux kernel dev). Debating security boundaries and threat models is a sign of a healthy community, especially in a structured, non-confrontational way. -dave On Mon, Jul 6, 2020 at 12:06 PM Shawn Webb <shawn.webb(a)hardenedbsd.org> wrote: > On Mon, Jul 06, 2020 at 11:37:13AM -0700, Dave Aitel via Dailydave wrote: > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_Kza6fdkSU > > > > So I wanted to highlight this talk from Brad Spengler about the state of > > Linux security. It's a damning report if you read even a little bit > between > > the lines. And on many levels. As Halvar points out, Android deliberately > > avoided investing what they knew they needed to invest in platform > security > > in the effort to gather significant early market share, even knowing it > > would harm their user-base in a multitude of ways. > > > > And this kind of philosophical trade off taken by companies filters into > > the Linux security ecosystem, creating Ogres of various sorts, like > > Calamity Gannon's corruption of various parts of Hyrule. For example, > > phones often run on an older Linux kernel, which means there is economic > > incentive to backport features and security fixes to those kernels, or > > pretend you can. > > > > Likewise, much of the effort of the Linux security community is focused > on > > KASLR, which Brad points out, is largely a waste of time. > > > > He also talks about Syzkiller, automated exploit generation, and a host > of > > other things. Well worth a listen! > > It's also hard to innovate without a userland that is tightly > integrated with the kernel (like the BSDs). On the BSD side, we're > able to ship an entire ecosystem with exploit mitigations applied > because a basic userland is shipped and integrated with the kernel. > > The way in which the BSDs are structured enables innovation across the > entire ecosystem. We at HardenedBSD are able to test and deploy > exploit mitigations across the base operating system in addition to > 33,000+ packages. > > In addition to Brad's observations, I opine that the fragmentation of > Linux has provided a net decrease in security posture. > > -- > Shawn Webb > Cofounder / Security Engineer > HardenedBSD > > GPG Key ID: 0xFF2E67A277F8E1FA > GPG Key Fingerprint: D206 BB45 15E0 9C49 0CF9 3633 C85B 0AF8 AB23 0FB2 > > https://git-01.md.hardenedbsd.org/HardenedBSD/pubkeys/src/branch/master/Sha… >