On Mon, 3 Dec 2012 16:43:50 -0500 Jeffrey Walton <[email protected]> wrote:
> Under > SEAndroid, root is just another user who is contained. You said this much better than many who say root no longer exists but it's still not quite true. You can remove root too but root or an equivelent user/uid (toor on freeBSD) even is still gainable, though maybe not more than one on Android? Root is limited to what he has been allowed to do. If those limits which are often generic allow the kernel to be exploited then all bets are off. I expect it's even possible that incorrect policies can cause exploitable kernel bugs. I believe there have been bugs in the LKM that grsecurities RBAC would have avoided too. It has nothing to do with DACs. There is a strong argument for OpenBSDs kernel with DACS being far more secure than Linux with MAC/RBAC. RBAC may help protect from bugs but simply not having them or complicated policies is far more secure. There is a stronger argument for MACs on desktops however, though the likes of dbus can jeopardise that. In any case the likelihood of root means you can only hope and do your best to secure such data on phones. p.s. root may have been gained temorarily or disabled via various methods or even fought over so it is quite possible that a once rooted phone has a much stronger security model. Obviously a non rooted phone that can easily be rooted or has more RPC bugs could be a bigger issue. Cyanogen mod now allows disabling root (superficially atleast) but it could still be enabled via e.g. the UI bug of the past tricking users. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Security Discussions" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-security-discuss?hl=en.
