Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3031 mails)

[Sloan <joe@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Benji Weber wrote:
> This is not the case. A browser running as a user can do anything the
> user is allowed to do. For example an exploit in the browser or image
> viewing library which can be exploited through malicious javascript or
> crafted image could potentially delete all your user files. It could
> be used to launch a denial of service attack or spam from your machine
> (no need for root for this). If combined with a local root exploit
> (which are not uncommon) it could potentially even get root and have
> full control over the system. Same applies to your mail client, irc
> client, and other such applications.
>   

You make it sound  trivial but the fact is, a bad guy will have a hell
of a lot of problems trying to get root remotely on a modern linux distro.

> If you completely ignore security by
> blindly visiting pages with possible malware on, or running all email
> attachments etc, even on openSUSE/GNU/Linux you are vulnerable.
>   

Please elaborate on the above statement - provide details, examples
because it all sounds very vague and alarming but there are no specifics.

> If you have an ssh server listening on the internet and you watch your
> logs I would be surprised if you have not noticed brute force attacks.
> Precautions such as strong passwords and fail2ban are important even
> for home machines if you run sshd.
>   
Sure, all sorts of failed attempts to login every day, because I have
ssh open, but tcp wrappers severely limits the list of IPs allowed to
connect and the "allow_users" line in sshd_config severely limits the
list of users allowed to connect. If that were not enough, sshd runs
with privilege separation, so that if a bad guy managed to break sshd,
he'd get only the rights of an unprivileged user.

> GNU/Linux systems are no less exploitable than windows. 

Well, that's an interesting belief, but it flies in the face of
overwhelming empirical evidence.

> The only reason you have a false sense of security now is that you are
> not a significant enough target for malware authors. When that changes
> if too many people have the same attitude then there will be a
> problem.
>
>   

Right, the old "windows security problems are due solely to it's
overwhelming popularity" mindset often entertained by the proverbial
random "man on the street". It's IMHO a naive viewpoint, since it
completely ignores the architectural differences between peecee and unix
operating systems.

Joe





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