On 13/02/18 20:10, Laura Abbott wrote: > On 02/13/2018 07:20 AM, Igor Stoppa wrote: >> Why alterations of page properties are not considered a risk and the physmap is? >> And how would it be easier (i suppose) to attack the latter? > > Alterations are certainly a risk but with the physmap the > mapping is already there. Find the address and you have > access vs. needing to actually modify the properties > then do the access. I could also be complete off base > on my threat model here so please correct me if I'm > wrong. It's difficult for me to comment on this without knowing *how* the attack would be performed, in your model. Ex: my expectation is that the attacked has R/W access to kernel data and has knowledge of the location of static variables. This is not just a guess, but a real-life scenario, found in attacks that, among other things, are capable of disabling SELinux, to proceed toward gaining full root capability. At that point, I think that variables which are allocated dynamically, in vmalloc address space, are harder to locate, because of the virtual mapping and the randomness of the address chosen (this I have not confirmed yet, but I suppose there is some randomness in picking the address to assign to a certain allocation request to vmalloc, otherwise, it could be added). > I think your other summaries are good points though > and should go in the cover letter. Ok, I'm just afraid it risks becoming a lengthy dissertation :-) -- igor -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@xxxxxxxxx. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Don't email: <a href=mailto:"dont@xxxxxxxxx";> email@xxxxxxxxx </a>
