47afd1f81e
Use em dashes instead of " - ". Use .Em instead of *emphasis*. Note that securing root indirectly (by securing staff accounts) works only if direct root access has been limited. [1] s/hacker/attacker, as done in the handbook. (inspired by [1]) PR: 52878 [1] Submitted by: Brian Minard <bminard@flatfoot.ca> [1]
680 lines
30 KiB
Groff
680 lines
30 KiB
Groff
.\" Copyright (c) 1998, Matthew Dillon. Terms and conditions are those of
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.\" the BSD Copyright as specified in the file "/usr/src/COPYRIGHT" in
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.\" the source tree.
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.\"
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.\" $FreeBSD$
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.\"
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.Dd September 18, 1999
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.Dt SECURITY 7
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.Os
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.Sh NAME
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.Nm security
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.Nd introduction to security under FreeBSD
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.Sh DESCRIPTION
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Security is a function that begins and ends with the system administrator.
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While all
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.Bx
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multi-user systems have some inherent security, the job of building and
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maintaining additional security mechanisms to keep users
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.Sq honest
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is probably
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one of the single largest undertakings of the sysadmin. Machines are
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only as secure as you make them, and security concerns are ever competing
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with the human necessity for convenience.
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.Ux
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systems,
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in general, are capable of running a huge number of simultaneous processes
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and many of these processes operate as servers \(em meaning that external entities
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can connect and talk to them. As yesterday's mini-computers and mainframes
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become today's desktops, and as computers become networked and internetworked,
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security becomes an ever bigger issue.
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.Pp
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Security is best implemented through a layered onion approach. In a nutshell,
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what you want to do is to create as many layers of security as are convenient
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and then carefully monitor the system for intrusions. You do not want to
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overbuild your security or you will interfere with the detection side, and
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detection is one of the single most important aspects of any security
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mechanism. For example, it makes little sense to set the
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.Pa schg
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flags
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(see
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.Xr chflags 1 )
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on every system binary because while this may temporarily protect the
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binaries, it prevents an attacker who has broken in from making an
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easily detectable change that may result in your security mechanisms not
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detecting the attacker at all.
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.Pp
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System security also pertains to dealing with various forms of attack,
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including attacks that attempt to crash or otherwise make a system unusable
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but do not attempt to break root. Security concerns can be split up into
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several categories:
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.Bl -enum -offset indent
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.It
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Denial of service attacks
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.It
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User account compromises
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.It
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Root compromise through accessible servers
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.It
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Root compromise via user accounts
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.It
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Backdoor creation
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.El
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.Pp
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A denial of service attack is an action that deprives the machine of needed
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resources. Typically, D.O.S. attacks are brute-force mechanisms that attempt
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to crash or otherwise make a machine unusable by overwhelming its servers or
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network stack. Some D.O.S. attacks try to take advantages of bugs in the
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networking stack to crash a machine with a single packet. The latter can
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only be fixed by applying a bug fix to the kernel. Attacks on servers can
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often be fixed by properly specifying options to limit the load the servers
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incur on the system under adverse conditions. Brute-force network
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attacks are harder to deal with. A spoofed-packet attack, for example, is
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nearly impossible to stop short of cutting your system off from the Internet.
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It may not be able to take your machine down, but it can fill up Internet
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pipe.
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.Pp
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A user account compromise is even more common than a D.O.S. attack. Many
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sysadmins still run standard telnetd, rlogind, rshd, and ftpd servers on their
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machines. These servers, by default, do not operate over encrypted
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connections. The result is that if you have any moderate-sized user base,
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one or more of your users logging into your system from a remote location
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(which is the most common and convenient way to login to a system)
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will
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have his or her password sniffed. The attentive system admin will analyze
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his remote access logs looking for suspicious source addresses
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even for successful logins.
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.Pp
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One must always assume that once an attacker has access to a user account,
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the attacker can break root. However, the reality is that in a well secured
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and maintained system, access to a user account does not necessarily give the
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attacker access to root. The distinction is important because without access
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to root the attacker cannot generally hide his tracks and may, at best, be
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able to do nothing more than mess with the user's files or crash the machine.
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User account compromises are very common because users tend not to take the
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precautions that sysadmins take.
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.Pp
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System administrators must keep in mind that there are potentially many ways
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to break root on a machine. The attacker may know the root password,
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the attacker
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may find a bug in a root-run server and be able to break root over a network
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connection to that server, or the attacker may know of a bug in an suid-root
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program that allows the attacker to break root once he has broken into a
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user's account. If an attacker has found a way to break root on a machine,
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the attacker may not have a need to install a backdoor.
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Many of the root holes found and closed to date involve a considerable amount
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of work by the attacker to cleanup after himself, so most attackers do install
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backdoors. This gives you a convenient way to detect the attacker. Making
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it impossible for an attacker to install a backdoor may actually be detrimental
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to your security because it will not close off the hole the attacker found to
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break in the first place.
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.Pp
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Security remedies should always be implemented with a multi-layered
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.Sq onion peel
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approach and can be categorized as follows:
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.Bl -enum -offset indent
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.It
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Securing root and staff accounts
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.It
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Securing root \(em root-run servers and suid/sgid binaries
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.It
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Securing user accounts
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.It
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Securing the password file
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.It
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Securing the kernel core, raw devices, and file systems
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.It
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Quick detection of inappropriate changes made to the system
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.It
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Paranoia
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.El
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.Sh SECURING THE ROOT ACCOUNT AND SECURING STAFF ACCOUNTS
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Don't bother securing staff accounts if you haven't secured the root
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account. Most systems have a password assigned to the root account. The
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first thing you do is assume that the password is
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.Sq always
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compromised. This does not mean that you should remove the password. The
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password is almost always necessary for console access to the machine.
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What it does mean is that you should not make it possible to use the password
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outside of the console or possibly even with a
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.Xr su 1
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command.
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For example, make sure that your pty's are specified as being unsecure
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in the
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.Sq Pa /etc/ttys
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file
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so that direct root logins via telnet or rlogin are disallowed. If using
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other login services such as sshd, make sure that direct root logins are
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disabled there as well. Consider every access method \(em services such as
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ftp often fall through the cracks. Direct root logins should only be allowed
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via the system console.
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.Pp
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Of course, as a sysadmin you have to be able to get to root, so we open up
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a few holes. But we make sure these holes require additional password
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verification to operate. One way to make root accessible is to add appropriate
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staff accounts to the wheel group
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(in
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.Pa /etc/group ) .
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The staff members placed
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in the wheel group are allowed to
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.Sq su
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to root. You should never give staff
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members native wheel access by putting them in the wheel group in their
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password entry. Staff accounts should be placed in a
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.Sq staff
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group, and then added to the wheel group via the
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.Sq Pa /etc/group
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file. Only those staff members who actually need to have root access
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should be placed in the wheel group. It is also possible, when using an
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authentication method such as kerberos, to use kerberos's
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.Sq Pa .k5login
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file in the root account to allow a
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.Xr ksu 1
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to root without having to place anyone at all in the wheel group. This
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may be the better solution since the wheel mechanism still allows an
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intruder to break root if the intruder has gotten hold of your password
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file and can break into a staff account. While having the wheel mechanism
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is better than having nothing at all, it isn't necessarily the safest
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option.
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.Pp
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An indirect way to secure the root account is to secure your staff accounts
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by using an alternative login access method and *'ing out the crypted password
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for the staff accounts. This way an intruder may be able to steal the password
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file but will not be able to break into any staff accounts or root, even if
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root has a crypted password associated with it (assuming, of course, that
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you've limited root access to the console). Staff members
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get into their staff accounts through a secure login mechanism such as
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.Xr kerberos 1
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or
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.Xr ssh 1
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using a private/public
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key pair. When you use something like kerberos you generally must secure
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the machines which run the kerberos servers and your desktop workstation.
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When you use a public/private key pair with ssh, you must generally secure
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the machine you are logging in FROM
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(typically your workstation),
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but you can
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also add an additional layer of protection to the key pair by password
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protecting the keypair when you create it with
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.Xr ssh-keygen 1 .
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Being able
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to *-out the passwords for staff accounts also guarantees that staff members
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can only login through secure access methods that you have setup. You can
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thus force all staff members to use secure, encrypted connections for
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all their sessions which closes an important hole used by many intruders: That
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of sniffing the network from an unrelated, less secure machine.
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.Pp
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The more indirect security mechanisms also assume that you are logging in
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from a more restrictive server to a less restrictive server. For example,
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if your main box is running all sorts of servers, your workstation shouldn't
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be running any. In order for your workstation to be reasonably secure
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you should run as few servers as possible, up to and including no servers
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at all, and you should run a password-protected screen blanker.
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Of course, given physical access to
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a workstation an attacker can break any sort of security you put on it.
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This is definitely a problem that you should consider but you should also
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consider the fact that the vast majority of break-ins occur remotely, over
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a network, from people who do not have physical access to your workstation or
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servers.
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.Pp
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Using something like kerberos also gives you the ability to disable or
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change the password for a staff account in one place and have it immediately
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affect all the machines the staff member may have an account on. If a staff
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member's account gets compromised, the ability to instantly change his
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password on all machines should not be underrated. With discrete passwords,
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changing a password on N machines can be a mess. You can also impose
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re-passwording restrictions with kerberos: not only can a kerberos ticket
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be made to timeout after a while, but the kerberos system can require that
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the user choose a new password after a certain period of time
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(say, once a month).
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.Sh SECURING ROOT \(em ROOT-RUN SERVERS AND SUID/SGID BINARIES
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The prudent sysadmin only runs the servers he needs to, no more, no less. Be
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aware that third party servers are often the most bug-prone. For example,
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running an old version of imapd or popper is like giving a universal root
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ticket out to the entire world. Never run a server that you have not checked
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out carefully. Many servers do not need to be run as root. For example,
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the ntalk, comsat, and finger daemons can be run in special user
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.Sq sandboxes .
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A sandbox isn't perfect unless you go to a large amount of trouble, but the
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onion approach to security still stands: If someone is able to break in
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through a server running in a sandbox, they still have to break out of the
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sandbox. The more layers the attacker must break through, the lower the
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likelihood of his success. Root holes have historically been found in
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virtually every server ever run as root, including basic system servers.
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If you are running a machine through which people only login via sshd and
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never login via telnetd or rshd or rlogind, then turn off those services!
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.Pp
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.Fx
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now defaults to running ntalkd, comsat, and finger in a sandbox.
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Another program which may be a candidate for running in a sandbox is
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.Xr named 8 .
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The default rc.conf includes the arguments necessary to run
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named in a sandbox in a commented-out form. Depending on whether you
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are installing a new system or upgrading an existing system, the special
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user accounts used by these sandboxes may not be installed. The prudent
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sysadmin would research and implement sandboxes for servers whenever possible.
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.Pp
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There are a number of other servers that typically do not run in sandboxes:
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sendmail, popper, imapd, ftpd, and others. There are alternatives to
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some of these, but installing them may require more work then you are willing
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to put
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(the convenience factor strikes again).
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You may have to run these
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servers as root and rely on other mechanisms to detect break-ins that might
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occur through them.
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.Pp
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The other big potential root hole in a system are the suid-root and sgid
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binaries installed on the system. Most of these binaries, such as rlogin,
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reside in
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.Pa /bin ,
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.Pa /sbin ,
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.Pa /usr/bin ,
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or
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.Pa /usr/sbin .
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While nothing is 100% safe,
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the system-default suid and sgid binaries can be considered reasonably safe.
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Still, root holes are occasionally found in these binaries. A root hole
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was found in Xlib in 1998 that made xterm
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(which is typically suid)
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vulnerable.
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It is better to be safe than sorry and the prudent sysadmin will restrict suid
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binaries that only staff should run to a special group that only staff can
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access, and get rid of
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.Pq Li "chmod 000"
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any suid binaries that nobody uses. A
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server with no display generally does not need an xterm binary. Sgid binaries
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can be almost as dangerous. If an intruder can break an sgid-kmem binary the
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intruder might be able to read
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.Pa /dev/kmem
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and thus read the crypted password
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file, potentially compromising any passworded account. Alternatively an
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intruder who breaks group kmem can monitor keystrokes sent through pty's,
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including pty's used by users who login through secure methods. An intruder
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that breaks the tty group can write to almost any user's tty. If a user
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is running a terminal
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program or emulator with a keyboard-simulation feature, the intruder can
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potentially
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generate a data stream that causes the user's terminal to echo a command, which
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is then run as that user.
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.Sh SECURING USER ACCOUNTS
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User accounts are usually the most difficult to secure. While you can impose
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Draconian access restrictions on your staff and *-out their passwords, you
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may not be able to do so with any general user accounts you might have. If
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you do have sufficient control then you may win out and be able to secure the
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user accounts properly. If not, you simply have to be more vigilant in your
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monitoring of those accounts. Use of ssh and kerberos for user accounts is
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more problematic due to the extra administration and technical support
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required, but still a very good solution compared to a crypted password
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file.
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.Sh SECURING THE PASSWORD FILE
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The only sure fire way is to *-out as many passwords as you can and
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use ssh or kerberos for access to those accounts. Even though the
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crypted password file
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.Pq Pa /etc/spwd.db
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can only be read by root, it may
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be possible for an intruder to obtain read access to that file even if the
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attacker cannot obtain root-write access.
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.Pp
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Your security scripts should always check for and report changes to
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the password file
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(see
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.Sq Checking file integrity
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below).
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.Sh SECURING THE KERNEL CORE, RAW DEVICES, AND FILE SYSTEMS
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If an attacker breaks root he can do just about anything, but there
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are certain conveniences. For example, most modern kernels have a
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packet sniffing device driver built in. Under
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.Fx
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it is called
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the
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.Sq bpf
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device. An intruder will commonly attempt to run a packet sniffer
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on a compromised machine. You do not need to give the intruder the
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capability and most systems should not have the bpf device compiled in.
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.Pp
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But even if you turn off the bpf device,
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you still have
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.Pa /dev/mem
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and
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.Pa /dev/kmem
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to worry about. For that matter,
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the intruder can still write to raw disk devices.
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Also, there is another kernel feature called the module loader,
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.Xr kldload 8 .
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An enterprising intruder can use a KLD module to install
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his own bpf device or other sniffing device on a running kernel.
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To avoid these problems you have to run
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the kernel at a higher secure level, at least securelevel 1. The securelevel
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can be set with a sysctl on the kern.securelevel variable. Once you have
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set the securelevel to 1, write access to raw devices will be denied and
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special chflags flags, such as
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.Sq schg ,
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will be enforced. You must also ensure
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that the
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.Sq schg
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flag is set on critical startup binaries, directories, and
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script files \(em everything that gets run up to the point where the securelevel
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is set. This might be overdoing it, and upgrading the system is much more
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difficult when you operate at a higher secure level. You may compromise and
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run the system at a higher secure level but not set the schg flag for every
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system file and directory under the sun. Another possibility is to simply
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mount / and /usr read-only. It should be noted that being too draconian in
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what you attempt to protect may prevent the all-important detection of an
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intrusion.
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.Sh CHECKING FILE INTEGRITY: BINARIES, CONFIG FILES, ETC
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When it comes right down to it, you can only protect your core system
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configuration and control files so much before the convenience factor
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rears its ugly head. For example, using chflags to set the schg bit
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on most of the files in / and /usr is probably counterproductive because
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while it may protect the files, it also closes a detection window. The
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last layer of your security onion is perhaps the most important \(em detection.
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The rest of your security is pretty much useless (or, worse, presents you with
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a false sense of safety) if you cannot detect potential incursions. Half
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the job of the onion is to slow down the attacker rather than stop him
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in order to give the detection side of the equation a chance to catch him in
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the act.
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.Pp
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The best way to detect an incursion is to look for modified, missing, or
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unexpected files. The best
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way to look for modified files is from another (often centralized)
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limited-access system.
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Writing your security scripts on the extra-secure limited-access system
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makes them mostly invisible to potential attackers, and this is important.
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In order to take maximum advantage you generally have to give the
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limited-access box significant access to the other machines in the business,
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usually either by doing a read-only NFS export of the other machines to the
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limited-access box, or by setting up ssh keypairs to allow the limit-access
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box to ssh to the other machines. Except for its network traffic, NFS is
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the least visible method \(em allowing you to monitor the file systems on each
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client box virtually undetected. If your
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limited-access server is connected to the client boxes through a switch,
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the NFS method is often the better choice. If your limited-access server
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is connected to the client boxes through a hub or through several layers
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of routing, the NFS method may be too insecure (network-wise) and using ssh
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may be the better choice even with the audit-trail tracks that ssh lays.
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.Pp
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Once you give a limit-access box at least read access to the client systems
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it is supposed to monitor, you must write scripts to do the actual
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monitoring. Given an NFS mount, you can write scripts out of simple system
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utilities such as
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.Xr find 1
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and
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.Xr md5 1
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It is best to physically md5 the client-box files boxes at least once a
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day, and to test control files such as those found in
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.Pa /etc
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and
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.Pa /usr/local/etc
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even more often. When mismatches are found relative to the base md5
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information the limited-access machine knows is valid, it should scream at
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a sysadmin to go check it out. A good security script will also check for
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inappropriate suid binaries and for new or deleted files on system partitions
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such as
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.Pa /
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and
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.Pa /usr
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.Pp
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When using ssh rather than NFS, writing the security script is much more
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difficult. You essentially have to
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.Pa scp
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the scripts to the client box in order to run them, making them visible, and
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for safety you also need to scp the binaries (such as find) that those scripts
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use. The ssh daemon on the client box may already be compromised. All in all,
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using ssh may be necessary when running over unsecure links, but it's also a
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lot harder to deal with.
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.Pp
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A good security script will also check for changes to user and staff members
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access configuration files:
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.Pa .rhosts ,
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.Pa .shosts ,
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.Pa .ssh/authorized_keys
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and so forth... files that might fall outside the purview of the MD5 check.
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.Pp
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If you have a huge amount of user disk space it may take too long to run
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through every file on those partitions. In this case, setting mount
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|
flags to disallow suid binaries and devices on those partitions is a good
|
|
idea. The
|
|
.Sq nodev
|
|
and
|
|
.Sq nosuid
|
|
options
|
|
(see
|
|
.Xr mount 8 )
|
|
are what you want to look into. I would scan them anyway at least once a
|
|
week, since the object of this layer is to detect a break-in whether or
|
|
not the break-in is effective.
|
|
.Pp
|
|
Process accounting
|
|
(see
|
|
.Xr accton 8 )
|
|
is a relatively low-overhead feature of
|
|
the operating system which I recommend using as a post-break-in evaluation
|
|
mechanism. It is especially useful in tracking down how an intruder has
|
|
actually broken into a system, assuming the file is still intact after
|
|
the break-in occurs.
|
|
.Pp
|
|
Finally, security scripts should process the log files and the logs themselves
|
|
should be generated in as secure a manner as possible \(em remote syslog can be
|
|
very useful. An intruder tries to cover his tracks, and log files are critical
|
|
to the sysadmin trying to track down the time and method of the initial
|
|
break-in. One way to keep a permanent record of the log files is to run
|
|
the system console to a serial port and collect the information on a
|
|
continuing basis through a secure machine monitoring the consoles.
|
|
.Sh PARANOIA
|
|
A little paranoia never hurts. As a rule, a sysadmin can add any number
|
|
of security features as long as they do not affect convenience, and
|
|
can add security features that do affect convenience with some added
|
|
thought. Even more importantly, a security administrator should mix it up
|
|
a bit \(em if you use recommendations such as those given by this manual
|
|
page verbatim, you give away your methodologies to the prospective
|
|
attacker who also has access to this manual page.
|
|
.Sh SPECIAL SECTION ON D.O.S. ATTACKS
|
|
This section covers Denial of Service attacks. A DOS attack is typically
|
|
a packet attack. While there isn't much you can do about modern spoofed
|
|
packet attacks that saturate your network, you can generally limit the damage
|
|
by ensuring that the attacks cannot take down your servers.
|
|
.Bl -enum -offset indent
|
|
.It
|
|
Limiting server forks
|
|
.It
|
|
Limiting springboard attacks (ICMP response attacks, ping broadcast, etc...)
|
|
.It
|
|
Kernel Route Cache
|
|
.El
|
|
.Pp
|
|
A common DOS attack is against a forking server that attempts to cause the
|
|
server to eat processes, file descriptors, and memory until the machine
|
|
dies. Inetd
|
|
(see
|
|
.Xr inetd 8 )
|
|
has several options to limit this sort of attack.
|
|
It should be noted that while it is possible to prevent a machine from going
|
|
down it is not generally possible to prevent a service from being disrupted
|
|
by the attack. Read the inetd manual page carefully and pay specific attention
|
|
to the
|
|
.Fl c ,
|
|
.Fl C ,
|
|
and
|
|
.Fl R
|
|
options. Note that spoofed-IP attacks will circumvent
|
|
the
|
|
.Fl C
|
|
option to inetd, so typically a combination of options must be used.
|
|
Some standalone servers have self-fork-limitation parameters.
|
|
.Pp
|
|
Sendmail has its
|
|
.Fl OMaxDaemonChildren
|
|
option which tends to work much
|
|
better than trying to use sendmail's load limiting options due to the
|
|
load lag. You should specify a
|
|
.Cm MaxDaemonChildren
|
|
parameter when you start
|
|
sendmail high enough to handle your expected load but no so high that the
|
|
computer cannot handle that number of sendmails without falling on its face.
|
|
It is also prudent to run sendmail in queued mode
|
|
.Pq Fl ODeliveryMode=queued
|
|
and to run the daemon
|
|
.Pq Cm sendmail -bd
|
|
separate from the queue-runs
|
|
.Pq Cm sendmail -q15m .
|
|
If you still want realtime delivery you can run the queue
|
|
at a much lower interval, such as
|
|
.Fl q1m ,
|
|
but be sure to specify a reasonable
|
|
.Cm MaxDaemonChildren
|
|
option for that sendmail to prevent cascade failures.
|
|
.Pp
|
|
Syslogd can be attacked directly and it is strongly recommended that you use
|
|
the
|
|
.Fl s
|
|
option whenever possible, and the
|
|
.Fl a
|
|
option otherwise.
|
|
.Pp
|
|
You should also be fairly careful
|
|
with connect-back services such as tcpwrapper's reverse-identd, which can
|
|
be attacked directly. You generally do not want to use the reverse-ident
|
|
feature of tcpwrappers for this reason.
|
|
.Pp
|
|
It is a very good idea to protect internal services from external access
|
|
by firewalling them off at your border routers. The idea here is to prevent
|
|
saturation attacks from outside your LAN, not so much to protect internal
|
|
services from network-based root compromise. Always configure an exclusive
|
|
firewall, i.e.\&
|
|
.So
|
|
firewall everything
|
|
.Em except
|
|
ports A, B, C, D, and M-Z
|
|
.Sc .
|
|
This
|
|
way you can firewall off all of your low ports except for certain specific
|
|
services such as named
|
|
(if you are primary for a zone),
|
|
ntalkd, sendmail,
|
|
and other internet-accessible services.
|
|
If you try to configure the firewall the other
|
|
way \(em as an inclusive or permissive firewall, there is a good chance that you
|
|
will forget to
|
|
.Sq close
|
|
a couple of services or that you will add a new internal
|
|
service and forget to update the firewall. You can still open up the
|
|
high-numbered port range on the firewall to allow permissive-like operation
|
|
without compromising your low ports. Also take note that
|
|
.Fx
|
|
allows you to
|
|
control the range of port numbers used for dynamic binding via the various
|
|
net.inet.ip.portrange sysctl's
|
|
.Pq Li "sysctl -a | fgrep portrange" ,
|
|
which can also
|
|
ease the complexity of your firewall's configuration. I usually use a normal
|
|
first/last range of 4000 to 5000, and a hiport range of 49152 to 65535, then
|
|
block everything under 4000 off in my firewall
|
|
(except for certain specific
|
|
internet-accessible ports, of course).
|
|
.Pp
|
|
Another common DOS attack is called a springboard attack \(em to attack a server
|
|
in a manner that causes the server to generate responses which then overload
|
|
the server, the local network, or some other machine. The most common attack
|
|
of this nature is the ICMP PING BROADCAST attack. The attacker spoofs ping
|
|
packets sent to your LAN's broadcast address with the source IP address set
|
|
to the actual machine they wish to attack. If your border routers are not
|
|
configured to stomp on ping's to broadcast addresses, your LAN winds up
|
|
generating sufficient responses to the spoofed source address to saturate the
|
|
victim, especially when the attacker uses the same trick on several dozen
|
|
broadcast addresses over several dozen different networks at once. Broadcast
|
|
attacks of over a hundred and twenty megabits have been measured. A second
|
|
common springboard attack is against the ICMP error reporting system. By
|
|
constructing packets that generate ICMP error responses, an attacker can
|
|
saturate a server's incoming network and cause the server to saturate its
|
|
outgoing network with ICMP responses. This type of attack can also crash the
|
|
server by running it out of mbuf's, especially if the server cannot drain the
|
|
ICMP responses it generates fast enough. The
|
|
.Fx
|
|
kernel has a new kernel
|
|
compile option called ICMP_BANDLIM which limits the effectiveness of these
|
|
sorts of attacks. The last major class of springboard attacks is related to
|
|
certain internal inetd services such as the udp echo service. An attacker
|
|
simply spoofs a UDP packet with the source address being server A's echo port,
|
|
and the destination address being server B's echo port, where server A and B
|
|
are both on your LAN. The two servers then bounce this one packet back and
|
|
forth between each other. The attacker can overload both servers and their
|
|
LANs simply by injecting a few packets in this manner. Similar problems
|
|
exist with the internal chargen port. A competent sysadmin will turn off all
|
|
of these inetd-internal test services.
|
|
.Pp
|
|
Spoofed packet attacks may also be used to overload the kernel route cache.
|
|
Refer to the net.inet.ip.rtexpire, rtminexpire, and rtmaxcache sysctl
|
|
parameters. A spoofed packet attack that uses a random source IP will cause
|
|
the kernel to generate a temporary cached route in the route table, viewable
|
|
with
|
|
.Sq netstat -rna \&| fgrep W3 .
|
|
These routes typically timeout in 1600
|
|
seconds or so. If the kernel detects that the cached route table has gotten
|
|
too big it will dynamically reduce the rtexpire but will never decrease it to
|
|
less than rtminexpire. There are two problems: (1) The kernel does not react
|
|
quickly enough when a lightly loaded server is suddenly attacked, and (2) The
|
|
rtminexpire is not low enough for the kernel to survive a sustained attack.
|
|
If your servers are connected to the internet via a T3 or better it may be
|
|
prudent to manually override both rtexpire and rtminexpire via
|
|
.Xr sysctl 8 .
|
|
Never set either parameter to zero
|
|
(unless you want to crash the machine :-)).
|
|
Setting both parameters to 2 seconds should be sufficient to protect the route
|
|
table from attack.
|
|
.Sh ACCESS ISSUES WITH KERBEROS AND SSH
|
|
There are a few issues with both kerberos and ssh that need to be addressed
|
|
if you intend to use them. Kerberos V is an excellent authentication
|
|
protocol but the kerberized telnet and rlogin suck rocks. There are bugs that
|
|
make them unsuitable for dealing with binary streams. Also, by default
|
|
kerberos does not encrypt a session unless you use the
|
|
.Fl x
|
|
option. Ssh encrypts everything by default.
|
|
.Pp
|
|
Ssh works quite well in every respect except when it is set up to
|
|
forward encryption keys.
|
|
What this means is that if you have a secure workstation holding
|
|
keys that give you access to the rest of the system, and you ssh to an
|
|
unsecure machine, your keys become exposed. The actual keys themselves are
|
|
not exposed, but ssh installs a forwarding port for the duration of your
|
|
login and if an attacker has broken root on the unsecure machine he can utilize
|
|
that port to use your keys to gain access to any other machine that your
|
|
keys unlock.
|
|
.Pp
|
|
We recommend that you use ssh in combination with kerberos whenever possible
|
|
for staff logins. Ssh can be compiled with kerberos support. This reduces
|
|
your reliance on potentially exposable ssh keys while at the same time
|
|
protecting passwords via kerberos. Ssh keys
|
|
should only be used for automated tasks from secure machines (something
|
|
that kerberos is unsuited to). We also recommend that you either turn off
|
|
key-forwarding in the ssh configuration, or that you make use of the
|
|
.Pa "from=IP/DOMAIN"
|
|
option that ssh allows in its
|
|
.Pa authorized_keys
|
|
file to make the key only usable to entities logging in from specific
|
|
machines.
|
|
.Sh SEE ALSO
|
|
.Xr chflags 1 ,
|
|
.Xr find 1 ,
|
|
.Xr md5 1 ,
|
|
.Xr netstat 1 ,
|
|
.Xr openssl 1 ,
|
|
.Xr ssh 1 ,
|
|
.Xr xdm 1 ,
|
|
.Xr group 5 ,
|
|
.Xr ttys 5 ,
|
|
.Xr accton 8 ,
|
|
.Xr init 8 ,
|
|
.Xr sshd 8 ,
|
|
.Xr sysctl 8 ,
|
|
.Xr syslogd 8 ,
|
|
.Xr vipw 8
|
|
.Sh HISTORY
|
|
The
|
|
.Nm
|
|
manual page was originally written by
|
|
.An Matthew Dillon
|
|
and first appeared
|
|
in
|
|
.Fx 3.1 ,
|
|
December 1998.
|