On a related note to pkexec, anyone know how to mitigate this?

https://thehackernews.com/2018/12/linux-user-privilege-policykit.html

Thanks,

Trevor

On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 10:03 AM Trevor Vaughan <[email protected]>
wrote:

> Hi Steve,
>
> On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 9:41 AM Steve Grubb <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> On Monday, November 26, 2018 9:18:07 AM EST Trevor Vaughan wrote:
>> > In my never ending quest to find new and annoying ways to do
>> everything, I
>> > figured that I'd throw out the new list of fun.
>> >
>> > 1. Using pkexec makes sudo relatively pointless. Sure, it logs things,
>>
>> It does not send audit events which is a big deal.
>>
>
> I had no idea about this. That's super fun. It logs to syslog but having
> it jump the audit chain is fun.
>
>
>> > but we now effectively have two sudo subsystems and one can't really
>> have
>> > the rules audited per my last discussion with Steve because JavaScript
>> as a
>> > configuration language is amazing. Not sure what to do about this one
>> but
>> > people should really be watching for it and I don't see any mention of
>> it
>> > in the rules anywhere.
>>
>> What I told the Fedora community is that the only thing that can be done
>> is
>> to get a SHA256 hash of the auth file and compare that during security
>> audits.
>> Its suboptimal but should work.
>>
>
> Unfortunately, it only works if you never add or modify anything else in
> that space. That means RPMs or anything else are going to have to be really
> carefully audited and, since it's JavaScript, you can literally embed
> obfuscated stuff somewhere else on the OS and call it a day. Super exciting.
>
> Currently, I'm going with a puppet based authoritative management and
> purge but I'm not sure how you make that generic.
>
>
>>
>>
>> > 2. Systemd timers can be run in user mode and effectively make all the
>> > restrictions around cron and at pointless from what I can tell.
>>
>> Cron and at can do auditing and MLS. Which is a big deal for security.
>> Systemd has no auditing for timers nor can it do MLS. One thing to know
>> about
>> systemd is that they place a lot of functionality in it for minimal
>> systems.
>> For example if you are designing an embedded system, then systemd's
>> functionality may be good enough such that you do not need to drag in
>> lots of
>> dependencies which increase the footprint. However, it is not a
>> replacement
>> for full fledged security solutions. For example, systemd can replace
>> xinetd.
>> However, it cannot do MLS nor any of the fancy blocking that xinetd can
>> do.
>>
>
> So, it sounds like systemd needs to be updated with MLS/SELinux support or
> it needs to be able to run in "this isn't a minimial system so stop trying
> to be helpful" mode. In the mean time, shouldn't the SSG have rules to
> disable all of the shenanigans that replace better OS services.
> Unfortunately, I think that you may be one of the few people that can
> actually enumerate these without a bunch of dumpster diving.
>
>
>>
>> > So far, I
>> > can't figure out how to disable user space timers or 'systemctl --user'
>> > calls without completely removing 'pam_systemd' from the stack. No idea
>> > what this would break but it's probably the only solution right now (or
>> > maybe having a group-based jump stack in PAM).
>>
>> If it cannot be disabled, then it must be auditable. I'd say a bz may
>> need to
>> be opened on this.
>>
>
> Well, is there a problem with jumping over `pam_systemd` except for
> specific users? I simply don't know what this would break. If that works,
> then we can add that to the SSG. If not, yeah, that could be a problem.
>
>
>>
>> -Steve
>>
>> > 3. There should probably be some sort of check to make sure that
>> > 'enable-linger' has not been set for users.
>>
>
> I did a quick dig on this one and it looks like auditing
> /var/lib/systemd/linger for files should work fine and should be simple to
> implement.
>
>
>> >
>> > In summary, the SSG simply does not cover any of the new EL7+
>> capabilities
>> > very well, particularly those that replace traditional services that are
>> > already expected to be controlled. As systemd becomes more of an
>> operating
>> > system and less of service manager, this will only get worse.
>> >
>> > Thanks,
>> >
>> > Trevor
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
> Trevor Vaughan
> Vice President, Onyx Point, Inc
> (410) 541-6699 x788
>
> -- This account not approved for unencrypted proprietary information --
>


-- 
Trevor Vaughan
Vice President, Onyx Point, Inc
(410) 541-6699 x788

-- This account not approved for unencrypted proprietary information --
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