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- Date: Tue, 18 Apr 89 01:47 CDT
- To: TK0JUT1
- From: Gordon Meyer <TK0GRM1>
- Subject: ATI 35 (yes..I got thru to GZ at last)
-
-
- ***** ********* *******
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- ********* * *
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- * * * *******
-
- Issue #35 March 29, 1989
- Happy Birthday to The Operator (201) !!
-
-
- **************
- ** YIPPIE! **- - - - - - - - - - .
- ************** /
- / /
- / /
- Activist Times, Inc. ATI is a
- journalistic, causistic, /
- /cyberpolitical /
- /organization, / 4 more info?
- /trying to / send SASE
- /help y'all / stamps???
- change the world / to:
- radically, in less / ATI
- than two minutes / P.O. Box 2501
- ...of course! / Bloomfield, NJ
- - - - - - - - 07003
-
-
-
- Note the new address! Of course..
- The only difference is that your lovely
- correspondence will go to yours truly,
- Ground Zero.
-
- Ok, here's some of the correspondence
- we've gotten lately. Keep the feedback
- coming. We love to hear from our
- readers, even if it's criticism.
-
- .:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.
-
- From: Anonymous Location: Unknown
-
- Finally got all of ATI34... Just a few comments.
-
- NJ Bell isn't "favoring" AT&T over the other carriers. It's merely engaging in
- the common business of selling information on its customers. Name one business
- that doesn't do this, I'll show you one missing out on a nice source of easy
- profit.
-
- The New Age club: is it any worse than any of the politically correct
- movements (the New Age movement, that is)? A couple of days ago I went down to
- the low-rent/low-iq/high-crimerate section of town and started collecting some
- of the political posters. The following was taken from a flyer advertising a
- feminist rally to oppose pro-lifers:
- The Link Between Forced Reproduction and Forced Sterilization!
- Speaker: Elizabeth Thacker from the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade
- I won't bother with the rest; it was a paranoid ramble about how white males
- were opposing abortion to force women into being sterilized as the only means
- of birth control. I could give more examples, like a press statement from the
- NAACP regarding a recent civil rights decion by the federal government
- The New Age movement is no worse than any other mass movement; in fact, by
- your standards they should be the best. Don't they show concern for the
- environment, the arms race, and poverty, and believe in Universal Love and
- all the other things your average 60's-leftover leftist advocates but has
- enough sense not to follow.
-
- Regarding the Tau Kappa Et advocates but has
- enough sense not to follow.
-
- Regarding the Tau Kappa Epsilon poster: was it any more frightening than the
- self-righteous censorship practiced by yourself and the other campus
- feminists?
-
- Question yourself as well as others
-
-
- -:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-
-
- GZ's reply: I do question myself,quite
- often, in fact. You brought up a good
- point about NJ Bell, which I can agree
- with. However, your refernce to the
- "low rent/low-iq" part of town shows
- an obvious bias against the poor. And
- I am all too familiar with the
- Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade,
- which often takes extreme stances on
- issues, but I must say that there truly
- have been many instances in which the
- poor have undergone forced steriliz-
- ation. And you cannot deny the fact
- that regular means of birth control are
- not readily accessible by poor women.
- If these methods were available to poor
- women in the first place, there would
- be little need for abortions or ster-
- ilization. And as far as censorship of
- the TKE posters, I believe that I have
- the right to remove materials that are
- both extremely offensive and, more
- importantly, dangerous to women.
-
- -:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-
-
- From: The Worm Location: 203
-
- I enjoy reading ATI very much. Are you the originator of this magazine?
-
-
- :.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.:
-
- GZ's reply: No, Prime Anarchist (203)
- was the originator of ATI last summer.
- When he went into the Army last
- November, I took over the writing and
- distribution, along with Fah-Q and
- The Operator (201) and our staff,
- consisting of Cygnus (203) and The
- Happy Hacker (412), and other occasion-
- al contributors. Thanks for your
- continued support!
-
- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-
-
- Ok, now for something that I think
- you'll enjoy. We don't have the Doc
- Telecom/Raider article ready yet, so
- we will grace you with an article on
- UNIX which we hope you'll find very
- informative. Don't flinch, just read
- it. Maybe you'll learn something..
-
- ?"Striving for Unix Security" ?
- ? Typed in by Nightcrawler for Activist Times, Inc. ?
- ? Originally presented in Computerworld -- March 20, 1989 ?
-
- Last November's well-publicized worm attack struck more than Internet's
- Unix-based electronic mail system. The operating system and AT & T, its
- major developer, are also suffering from the impact. Other potential
- victims may be corporations and governments that have accepted Unix for
- its functionality and portability.
- Unix has a reputation for being insecure. But is it inherently insecure?
- The question has enormous economic, political and techonological sensitivity
- but it and others must be answered.
- The facts are that Unix's security depends on the version of the operating
- system being used, what the systems administrator has established as controls
- and what pressures for security improvements develop from the government
- corporations and even AT & T.
- What are the security problems associated with using the Unix operating
- system? How can IS best safeguard information running on Unix-based systems?
- What specific approaches to improving the security of Unix systems will be
- effective?
-
- "Unix popularity"
- Secure or not, there is no doubt that Unix is popular. The results of a
- recent survey of Unix users indicate that the reasons for Unix's growing
- popularity among users range from its portability and cost-effectiveness to
- its proven success in other organizations. Certain companies have little
- choice in whether to select Unix, because the software programs best suited
- for their needs are often Unix-based.
- According to the survey, the biggest barrier to increasing Unix usage is
- the lack of trained technical expertise, the lack of compatibility and the
- lack of application software. Framingham, Mass.-based market research firm
- International Data Corp. has cited the lack of proven commercial and
- application software performance and the standards confusion as also working
- against Unix.
- Interestingly, security was not mentioned once in the survey results, even
- though the questions were asked in December, during the height of the publi-
- city surrounding the Internet virus attack. Yet security obviously should
- be a concern to the more than two-thirds of the respondents who indicated
- that they were using communications links between Unix and non-Unix systems
- for file transfer, terminal emulation, Transmission Control Protocol/
- Internet Protocol, and E-mail.
- Unix's popularity is partly because of the variety of Unix-based products
- out today. But because of the independent development work that has been
- done on Unix, the user is often faced with the fact that one Unix product is
- not always the same as another. In reality, there are a number of Unix
- versions that share only certain features and security vulnerabilities.
- Unix's ready availability and portability have caused it to be the
- operating system of choice for both academicians and new companies develo-
- ping computer systems. Vendors that use it as the operating system for a
- hardware platform tailor Unix to suit their own needs. Usually this
- tailoring occurs inside the kernel.
-
- "What is Unix, really?"
- Unix is composed of a set of tools and applications that run on top of a
- base, or kernel, that handles the low-level functions. The tailoring inside
- the kernel would not be readily visible to users even though it may be
- extensive.
- For example, Unix is notorious for having a file system that is hard to
- repair and maintain. Thus, some vendors completely rewrite the file system
- internals in hope of improving their market edge and the stability of their
- system. While that vendor's system may be better, the result is that Unix
- often becomes a label on a set of services that appear to be the same to
- the user but are in fact very different inside.
- The University of California at Berkeley has become the center for much
- of the academic development that is now the basis for one of the two major
- versions of Unix available in the market -- Unix Version 4.2. AT & T's
- Unix System V, whose latest release -- Version 3.2, available since last
- fall -- contains major improvements in security.
- The Berkeley and AT & T versions are similar in some ways, but they are
- different enough to cause confusion. While many of the basic tool kits
- are the same, there are enough significant differences to warrant a parti-
- tioning of the market. Some vendors have chosen System V, and others have
- chosen 4.2. Not all of the applications running on one system run on the
- other.
- The industry has recognized these problems and has, for this and other
- reasons, tried to organize a "standard" Unix. There are competing organi-
- zations trying to create the standard Unix, including the Open Software
- Foundation (OSF), Unix International, Inc., the Institute of Electrical and
- Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in association with the National Institute of
- Standards and Technolog (NIST) and X/Open Consortium Ltd. The hope is that
- standardization will help make the operating system more consistent and thus
- more secure.
- As the standardization and security certification efforts heighten, more
- and more inspection of the development process and the structure of the
- actual code will be required. So far, the lack of development controls has
- created a potential for undesirable code to reside within the system and to
- be difficult to find.
- But these weaknesses may also portend Unix's greatest strength: The
- operating system's very openness and the scrutiny devoted to it will make
- it difficult for the bugs to remain in place forever. Since no single
- vendor has control over Unix, no single vendor can control or cover up the
- problems. Over the next few years, most of the unknowns in Unix hopefully
- will be understood and repaired.
-
- "Unix insecurity"
- The fact remains that Unix does have many sceurity vulnerabilities that
- are well known to computer and network managers. These weaknesses are also
- well known to hackers, computer hobbyists and others who may be interested
- in testing their technological skills. They have easy access to published
- articles, Unix documentation and bulletin-board information sources on
- back doors into Unix.
- The Unix security problem is composed of Unix-specific and non-Unix-
- specific elements. Unix-specific sceurity risks are those inherent in the
- architecture of th eoperating system and therefore are not likely to
- disappear from most existing Unix systems in the near future. Included in
- this classification are the "superuser" user category, which provides
- universal access, and the "setuid" and "setgid" system calls.
- Non-Unix-specific security risks are those associated with the normal
- usage of computer systems and software. On a Unix system, these can lead
- to great damage because of how Unix functions. Included in this category
- are the risks in having software conatin back doors or Trojan horses as
- well as unsecured physical locations where networks, computer rooms,
- terminals, tapes and disks can be accessed by unauthorized persons.
-
- "Unix-specific issues"
- The inherent operating qualities of Unix create a vulnerability that opens
- the doors to some security attacks. For the Unix-proficient, these struc-
- tures can be summarized in the superuser, setuid and setgid functions. A
- user who becomes a superuser is able to remove all the security barriers that
- exist within Unix. Thus, one problem deals with keeping unauthorized users
- from becoming superusers. This problem is common to a variety of Unix
- systems and has a rather standard set of administrative solutions.
- Many of the tools and utilities in Unix need to change modes into
- superuser for a brief period of time in order to reach some service that
- the system calls. When properly executed, these place the program executing
- them into superuser status. In most cases, such programs are well debugged
- and there is little risk of decreasing the stability of the system. However,
- teh existence of a mechanism that allows the garnting of unlimited privileges
- to some programs can be easily exploited. The xeploitation can occur through
- poor design or through maliciousness. There are many documented cases of
- poorlydebugged and/or maliciously designed programs being run in this mode
- and creating inadvertent or intentional damage.
- In one case, an administrator wrote a program that, among other things,
- allowed users store information in certain privileged directories. The
- program used a file, itself in a privileged directory, to control the
- directories that were to be written into. Unfortunatley, the file contained
- an entry for its own directory. A user saw this and rewrote the entire file,
- giving himslef the ability to write into any directory in the system. Were
- he malicious, he could easily have placed viruses, Trojan horses, back doors,
- or other programs in any system or user directory.
- Thus, any program capable of reaching superuser status needs to be care-
- fully managed and certified. In an environment that is open and free, what
- often happens instead is that software can be passed from one machine to
- another without proper certification. In one experiment, a researcher gave
- one such maliciously designed program to a nonprivileged Unix installation
- user and observed its migration to the status of a privileged program within
- a few days.
- Software travels quickly, and seemingly useful software travels even more
- quickly. Thus, while the mechanism within Unix can be safeguarded, it is
- more difficult to ensure that the people around Unix will act with the
- proper caution.
-
- "Non-Unix-specific issues"
- This scenario leads to the non-Unix-realted aspects of security. There
- are two popular methods for attacking a computer system -- a Trojan horse
- and a back door. These two types of attacks are used in many types of
- systems, not just Unix systems. A Trojan horse is a program that contains
- code whose instruction is to do some kind of damage.
- For all practical purposes, the program provides some useful service.
- However, it also contains logic that will do something other than what the
- program was intended to do. These Trojan hore programs have caused a
- variety of damage, ranging from corrupting files to surreptiously sending
- files across a network to someone who otherwise would not have access to
- the transferred data.
- A back door is similar to a Trojan horse except that it is a piece of code
- that is left behind to be triggered by an outside agent. The person who
- inserted the back door activates the code. Once activated, it responds to
- the commands of the intruder. The Internet virus in the Unix E-mail system
- allegedly came in through such a back door.
- In Unix, these and similar attacks pose special dangers because, by
- judicious manipulation, the attacker can become a superuser and gain access
- to anything in the machine. These unsophisticated computer attacks can be
- very effective in Unix, more so than in some other systems.
-
- "Other openings"
- In addition to ecternally produced Trojan horses and back doors, two
- mechanisms within Unix are important to security. When users enter a command
- in Unix, the system searches for the program named by that command along a
- search list of names defined by the variable "PATH." If this search list is
- altered in some fashion, everyday users can be invoking Trojan horse programs
- that are disguised to look like standard programs. In general, PATH is set
- up to search through a standard set of drirectories for the program. If PATH
- is altered to search through a directory that has not been allocated privi-
- leged status and does not belong to the user typing commands, then any
- program placed in that directory could be chosen before the standard program.
- Thus, one alteration to PATH can lead to an endless set of bogus programs.
- A security audit product currently on the market uses such a technique to
- determine if the security of the system has been breached. The security audit
- program masquerades as the common utility "ls." When "ls" is invoked, a
- security audit is done in addition to the normal work "ls" usually performs.
- While this use of the mechanism is for security reasons, other uses may not
- be for that purpose. Ensuring that PATH is not altered can control accidental
- triggering of malicious programs.
- The sceond major security concern found within Unix is the connection of
- the system to the network. Unix systems, by and large, tend to be connected
- to networks. Hiwever, besides their valuable use as user and data
- connectors, networks can also be thought of as vehicles for bringing in
- uncertified software and sending out private data.
- Unix has many tools that will alow it to become part of the growing commu-
- nity of newtwork users within the industry. The Unix-to-Unix Copy Program
- is one such mechanism that allows the system to send and receive mail and
- script files from users on other systems.
- In addition, network file systems represent another threat by requiring
- users to reach across the network for their file systems. This intimate
- link between users and their file systems can potentially be more easily
- intercepted than when this communication takes place within a single internal
- system. The network in effect puts the Unix system out in the open, where it
- may be more vulnerable to access attempts.
- Network connectivity also creates a need for adequate physical security.
- Many precautions must be taken to provide enough security for a Unix system
- just as for any other system. While Unix's physical sceurity requierments
- are no different from any other system, the availability of ways to connect
- to other systems over the network, local or worldwide, makes physical
- security harder to achieve than with other systems of lesser capability.
-
- "Securing Unix"
- While it may appear that Unix users are without protection, that is not
- the case at all. While Unix is not as strong as many in information
- security would like, newer versions of Unix have improved security, and
- additional tools are available to make Unix more secure. There are also
- future developments that will increase the ease of security management.
- Systems using Unix can be better protected. Yet, they are only as secure
- as their systems administrators allow them to be. The security of any
- operating system can be attributed directly to how well that system has been
- administratively reviewed and secured.
- IS must set up accounts, create passwords, add new software to the systems
- and give access rights to various pieces of data. The dynamics of admini-
- stering a system dictate ongoing change in the access and relationship of the
- various accounts, files and programs. Without careful and deliberate
- execution, the best automated mechanisms can be subverted.
- Beyond the system administrators, the vendors of systems with known
- weaknesses also have responsibilities to pay more attention to system
- security. They need to provide information and pass on timely patches to
- their customers when holes are discovered in their systems. They will have
- to work to increase their systems' security to stem lost sales opportunities
- as well as to prevent potential lawsuits, which, even if unsuccessful, can
- become public relations nightmares.
- While there may not always be enough pressure put on vendors solely by
- corporations requiring a secure Unix, the federal government has been quite
- active in seeking ways to induce security within the vendor community. Over
- the next few years, the government will strengthen the security requirements
- of all the systems -- Unix or otherwise -- that it procures, and as
- commercial vendors comply with these regulations, these products will become
- available to the private sector. Thus, systems purchased in 1992 should, in
- all likelihood, have significant security improvements over today's systems.
- In any case, the government-vendor cooperatie relationship can be examined in
- a number of ways.
- The current conflict over standards affects Unix security, and that is
- what links the vendor community with the federal government, which holds a
- major stake in Unix security. (The government purchased $1.93 billion worth
- of Unix systems in 1988, with approximately two-thirds of that eramarked for
- the defense agency.) According to recent published reports, US Department of
- Defense officials are so concerned about the security aspects of both AT &
- T's System V and OSF's Unix offering that they may try to force the two
- groups together to come up with an acceptable operating system.
- Recently, in response to the latest outbreak of computer viruses, the
- Defense Department formed the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT). CERT
- is a group of experts who will be available to fly to federal sites around
- nation to assist in fighting viruses. Last December, /Usr/Group, the Unix
- trade association, applauded the establishment of CERT and suggested that the
- computer industry supplement these government efforts by agreeing on standard
- procedures for dealing with emergencies such as viruses. The user group
- recommended considering the best way to disseminate information when computer
- networks are artificially congested through viruses or other exceptional
- network problems.
- The government also supports Unix security improvements through its
- testing procedures. In late 1986, the National Security Agency's National
- Computer Security Center studied a prototype secure system derived from
- AT & T's Unix System V, Release 2. The study assigned that system with the
- B2-level of assurance requirements defined in the Trusted Computer System
- Evaluation Criteria (TCSEC). The study concluded that is possible to build
- a B2, B3, or A1 system with an interface very much like that of Unix.
- However, it also concluded that major problems exist with today's common
- Unix implementations.
- Fortunately, vendors have started to respond to the government's security
- concerns. Several firms have announced secure versions of Unix to help them
- capture contracts with organizations such as aerospace companies. The
- Department of Defense issued Directive 5200.28 last year, requiring that by
- 1992 virtually all multiuser computer systems meet at least the C2 level of
- the TCSEC. This level provides for need-to-know protection, audit capabi-
- lity, and user accountability. Certain vendors have announced that they are
- seeking even higher levels of security. AT & T's next release of Unix is
- expected to have C2-level security features.
- In addition, the Department of Commerce's NIST, which develops standards
- for the civilian agencies of the federal government and interfaces with the
- private sector, has a Unix security project. Posix is concerned with
- security standards efforts associated with IEEE P1003.6, which is an
- inetrface-specific standard. The objectives and scope of this effort are to
- establish functional interface standards consistent with but not limited by
- the TCSEC. Elements of Posix wil include basic security mechanisms, discre-
- tionary access controls, auditability mechanisms and nondiscretionary access
- controls.
- Without a doubt, Unix security will improve over time. How it will
- improve and the costs involved in increased security are less certain.
- Those decisions await the push of an organized IS community.
- IS has a major stake in improving Unix security, but only such that the
- security serves other IS needs. If upgrading Unix security interferes with
- information flow or complicates network management, it will continue to
- receive insuffiecient attention. A balance between production and protec-
- tion will have to be addressed.
- IS managers have an absolute right to impress upon vendors their interest
- in security improvements within certain rpoduct lines. IS can also make it
- quite clear to the Unix standards groups that these organizations must agree
- on security as a priority area, aside from their other disagreements
- concerning standards.
- Finally, IS can advise and work with the government to define the security
- needs of the private sector. Firms should get into both the definition and
- decision loops at this time or be prepared to stand around and complain after
- some very essential decisions have been made. By that time, it may be too
- late to do very much.
- The Internet virus attack brought Unix security problems out into the
- open. Ironically, the attack took place while major efforts were already
- under way to improve the security of this operating system. Eventually,
- secure Unix may no longer be a contradiction in terms.
-
- ============================================================================
-
-
- Did you like it? I hope so. Thanks a
- bunch to Nightcrawler (516) for
- contributing it!
-
- Welp, that's all for ATI35. ATI36
- will be out within the next week. We
- promise. Look forward to a LOT of
- good stuff. In the meantime, stay
- cool, and remember....It's better to
- be pissed off then pissed on!
-
- Ciao...
- !