10 ms·

No word on if this is FLOSS or not in the article so I'm assuming it'll be something closed. Which essentially renders the entire exercise moot form my POV. I a

by kriro 10y ago

No word on if this is FLOSS or not in the article so I'm assuming it'll be something closed. Which essentially renders the entire exercise moot form my POV. I also don't like how they mentioned Linux. They make it sound as if (a) Linux is very insecure...I'm no expert but I'd like to see them prove their system is more secure than a Linux distro dedicated to security. (b) Linux is the only viable option. There's plenty of other operating systems, some even focus on security (starting with the list of existing microkernels).

pabloski 10y ago
"Anticipating your questions: not even the slightest smell of Linux. All the popular operating systems aren’t designed with security in mind, so it’s simpler and safer to start from the ground up and do everything correctly." It looks like a realistic assessment. General purpose operating systems ( at least the 3 most famous ones ) are built with ease of use in mind, not security. Even Torvalds admits it, saying that he sees performance as a top priority, and not security. If Kaspersky OS is more secure or not, we will see in the future.
- hobarrera 10y ago
  OpenBSD is pretty popular in the security community, and is as FLOSS as it gets.
  - vbezhenar 10y ago
    Yet it's not widely used as embedded OS. I never saw any router with OpenBSD or web camera. The underlying problem, IMO, is people. They just don't care about security, they want to deliver working device. Also it's not clear how many vulnerabilities, used in real life attacks (like DDOS from IoT devices) are in latest Linux kernel? May be problem not with Linux, but with custom software or lack of updates.
    - MichaelBurge 10y ago
      These two statements contradict each other: > The underlying problem, IMO, is people. They just don't care about security, they want to deliver working device. > This unassuming black box is [...] designed for networks with extreme requirements for data security. You can claim that nobody will buy Kaspersky's device, or that they did poor market research. But you can't claim that they don't care about security.
      - vbezhenar 10y ago
        Kaspersky certainly care about security, it's their business. I'm talking about people who build routers or web cameras. I doubt that Kaspersky built OS for internal use, they want to license it to other manufacturers. But I'm not sure that other manufacturers will want to pay for this extra security (if they would want, they already have better options).
        nickpsecurity 10y ago
        "Kaspersky certainly care about security, it's their business." Their business is selling antivirus & other software, not security. They have no history whatsoever of building a piece of software immune to code injection by determined attackers. There are companies and academics that build stuff like that. Some were evaluated by pentesters of third parties. Kaspersky has neither that background nor evaluations by expert breakers. We should by default think they don't know what they're doing and the product is insecure until proven otherwise. Like always. People often mistake "company in security industry selling security products" with "knows how to secure software or systems." They're two very different things.
        MichaelBurge 10y ago
        Can't you sue a company selling security products if it ends up being insecure? This is different from ordinary software, because most ordinary software isn't marketed with security as its primary selling feature. And if they're not getting it tested by independent experts, that could be negligence. If they're not liable in any way, then I agree it's nothing more than marketing to call it secure.
  - this-dang-guy 10y ago
    Yes, my first thought (after VMS) when he said no popular OS is designed for security. Then of course, I realized that by "Popular" he meant Mac OSX, Windows, and Linux. Linux of course, we all know is a security mess because Torvalds refuses to deal with security issues.
    - busterarm 10y ago
      I don't think it's a fair statement to blame Linux's security problems on Linus. Linux provides support for lots of security options, but the project's guiding philosophy is "don't break userland". This is 99% of the time what you see Linus cursing out other kernel contributors for. All of the possible options that Linus could _enforce_ would do just that. Heck, a lot of the security problems and blame have nothing to do with the kernel at all and lie squarely with systemd and how it's implemented. If these are dealbreaker features that you must have, Linux is not the tool for you. Your efforts are better spent working to improve OpenBSD.
      - this-dang-guy 10y ago
        Sure, but comments like: "Security people are often the black-and-white kind of people that I can't stand. I think the OpenBSD crowd is a bunch of masturbating monkeys, in that they make such a big deal about concentrating on security to the point where they pretty much admit that nothing else matters to them." "So LSM stays in. No ifs, buts, maybes or anything else. When I see the security people making sane arguments and agreeing on something, that will change. Quite frankly, I expect hell to freeze over before that happens, and pigs will be nesting in trees. But hey, I can hope." He's typically very critical of security-related changes unless they are a massive improvement. I think characterizing him as "functionality over security" is entirely fair. He's not even wrong necessarily.
        busterarm 10y ago
        The market has sort of proved him right. Companies that use Linux and need security will either get caught with their pants down or they won't. It's up to their level of preparedness and luck. I wouldn't underwrite that if I were an insurer though. Those of us that care are already using something else.
- hawski 10y ago
  Which is funny, because they say that popular operating systems are not designed with security in mind. They give this as a reason to start from the ground up. I am from the camp saying that currently sole kernel does not an OS make. With this in mind network equipment OSes are certainly not popular ones. Nevertheless there are probably lots of less popular OSes with less popular kernels that are designed with security in mind. Some of them are probably good tries at such a goal. They could be used and extended and it would be probably better securitywise, because of years of bug fixes, that no new OS can have.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    To support your point, the company below did a clean-slate OS tightly integrated with hardware protection features of Itanium CPU's to give people hell trying to compromise their DNS servers. Also re-did the networking stack to assume a hostile instead of benign network. Way over due there. The OS is available for licensing IIRC but OEM's don't give a shit about security if dollars are on the line. ;) http://www.secure64.com/secure-operating-system http://www.secure64.com/secure-operating-system An older one that was pentested by the NSA with positive results reduced attack surface by using PPC embedded board, INTEGRITY microkernel, and carefully-coded state machines. That a small team made this shows both the big companies and startups could be doing way better if they cared. http://www.sentinelsecurity.us/HYDRA/hydra.html http://www.sentinelsecurity.us/HYDRA/hydra.html
72deluxe 10y ago
Yes I would not take their mention of Linux as a personal attack on your operating system of choice. Treat it as someone saying "I don't like pizza" when you do like pizza - it means nothing to your enjoyment of pizza.
IshKebab 10y ago
Linux is very insecure. Maybe you have not been following the news lately.
- at-fates-hands 10y ago
  But comparatively speaking is still more secure than Windows or OS X?
  - this-dang-guy 10y ago
    The biggest issue with Windows isn't its inherent security, it's the way it's used. Most users run everything with super admin rights. Most developers require that for installs. OSX is right behind it, with a culture of laxness that undoes most of the benefits the designers tried to give them.
    - Vendan 10y ago
      I've run into "security software" for domain computers that required every computer to have the same local admin password... and for it to be enabled on every computer.
      - this-dang-guy 10y ago
        Exactly. That's ridiculous thinking far beyond what the OS designer is responsible for.
      - krylon 10y ago
        Hehe, I once saw a corporate network where the root password on all Un*x systems was ${vendor}xyz, i.e. sunxyz for a Solaris box, ibmxyz for AIX, and so forth. I hope at least they disabled root login via ssh.
        this-dang-guy 10y ago
        I've not seen that, but I have seen one where the root password was the vendor who supported it - like capgem123 ibm123 etc. Not quite as bad, but still pretty weak.
mmalone 10y ago
The article is light on details, but based on the way they talked about it ("impossible to hack in principle") it's likely that they actually can _prove_ that it's more secure than a Linux distro dedicated to security insofar as they're able to prove anything at all. Since the Linux APIs are not formally specified, or verified, it's essentially impossible to _prove_ anything at all (again, in a formal sense). Formal verification can get esoteric quickly, but the state of the art is very impressive (see CompCert, seL4, Agda, Idris). As someone who has been paying attention to this space for some time I welcome anything new that increases exposure. It's cool stuff, and it's probably the future. However, there's a long way to go. Security doesn't stop at the operating system. In fact, the vast majority of security breaches occur due to misconfiguration, bugs, or good old fashioned social engineering. To really build a system that's "secure in principle" you can't stop at the operating system: you need to build a toolchain that makes it easy to build user space applications that are also "secure in principal" and you need to work on the HCI so the security model makes sense / isn't defeated by users. That's going to be a lot of work!
- btown 10y ago
  There's a difference between "we show you the proof, and you trust us as a service provider that the assumptions are correct" - namely that non-OSS software is loaded in the form it is shown in the proof - and "we show you the proof, and give you all information needed to audit it." Some people will buy based on only the first statement and the brand of the company. Now, we're looking at a top-notch team of OS programmers; presumably, they all have access to do that audit themselves, and at least some of them must be ethical and proficient enough to notice and refuse to ship a backdoor, right? But the influence of a state actor given 14 years to compromise a team shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspersky_Lab#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspersky_Lab#Controversy
  - jodrellblank 10y ago
    Now, we're looking at a top-notch team of OS programmers Kaspersky AV hobbles my core i7 to the point where it can't even respond to keypresses. I have no view on its anti-virus abilities, but my every experience of it (the client and the management tools) is that it's shoddy enterprise churnware. And, of course, they also promote it as if it's the best thing ever. I guess the OS team could be the best ever. But my starting position is "ha ha, as if".
peterkelly 10y ago
> I also don't like how they mentioned Linux I do. Every time I read an article on a new "operating system" someone has released, it turns out to basically just be another Linux distribution, or a new gui/runtime environment running on top of the Linux kernel. Kaspersky took a step back and thought about their requirements, and decided to go with a microkernel architecture because they felt that was a better approach for security (a choice I agree with). It's refreshing to see genuinely new OSs built from the ground up (open source or not), because it shows that not everyone is stuck in the mindset of Linux when they want to innovate in the OS space. That's not to say that Linux is necessarily a bad choice for many scenarios, just that it's great to see projects that don't restrict themselves based on the design of Linux (and, more generally, Unix).
gspetr 10y ago
This is proprietary. Source: ex-employee.
DyslexicAtheist 10y ago
An OS without FOSS targeted at routers is a total meme. the security problems with linux I wouldn't want to dismiss though. I evangelize FOSS since the mid 90ies and we had a good laugh for 20 years whenever Windows messed up (remember trustworthycomputing.com ??). It is hard to dismiss that being accused for 25+ years for insecurity has nothing but boosted their situation. Whatever the perceived quality of Linux, security is currently not it's strongest feat. Systems should become more resilient under pressure over time. But in the case of Linux the problem was lack of external pressure and increasing arrogance and dismissing many of it's shortcomings. People still are way too touchy whenever somebody picks on Linux. The 0day window of vulnerability is a pretty good indicator over how it compares. Thegrugq's comparison of OS security (slightly NSFW) https://grugq.github.io/presentations/COMSEC%20beyond%20encryption.pdf https://grugq.github.io/presentations/COMSEC%20beyond%20encr...
- qznc 10y ago
  What happened to Pond? The domain is gone: https://pond.imperialviolet.org/ https://pond.imperialviolet.org/

by kriro 10y ago

pabloski 10y ago

"Anticipating your questions: not even the slightest smell of Linux. All the popular operating systems aren’t designed with security in mind, so it’s simpler and safer to start from the ground up and do everything correctly." It looks like a realistic assessment. General purpose operating systems ( at least the 3 most famous ones ) are built with ease of use in mind, not security. Even Torvalds admits it, saying that he sees performance as a top priority, and not security. If Kaspersky OS is more secure or not, we will see in the future.

hobarrera 10y ago
OpenBSD is pretty popular in the security community, and is as FLOSS as it gets.
- vbezhenar 10y ago
  Yet it's not widely used as embedded OS. I never saw any router with OpenBSD or web camera. The underlying problem, IMO, is people. They just don't care about security, they want to deliver working device. Also it's not clear how many vulnerabilities, used in real life attacks (like DDOS from IoT devices) are in latest Linux kernel? May be problem not with Linux, but with custom software or lack of updates.
  - MichaelBurge 10y ago
    These two statements contradict each other: > The underlying problem, IMO, is people. They just don't care about security, they want to deliver working device. > This unassuming black box is [...] designed for networks with extreme requirements for data security. You can claim that nobody will buy Kaspersky's device, or that they did poor market research. But you can't claim that they don't care about security.
    - vbezhenar 10y ago
      Kaspersky certainly care about security, it's their business. I'm talking about people who build routers or web cameras. I doubt that Kaspersky built OS for internal use, they want to license it to other manufacturers. But I'm not sure that other manufacturers will want to pay for this extra security (if they would want, they already have better options).
      - nickpsecurity 10y ago
        "Kaspersky certainly care about security, it's their business." Their business is selling antivirus & other software, not security. They have no history whatsoever of building a piece of software immune to code injection by determined attackers. There are companies and academics that build stuff like that. Some were evaluated by pentesters of third parties. Kaspersky has neither that background nor evaluations by expert breakers. We should by default think they don't know what they're doing and the product is insecure until proven otherwise. Like always. People often mistake "company in security industry selling security products" with "knows how to secure software or systems." They're two very different things.
        MichaelBurge 10y ago
        Can't you sue a company selling security products if it ends up being insecure? This is different from ordinary software, because most ordinary software isn't marketed with security as its primary selling feature. And if they're not getting it tested by independent experts, that could be negligence. If they're not liable in any way, then I agree it's nothing more than marketing to call it secure.
- this-dang-guy 10y ago
  Yes, my first thought (after VMS) when he said no popular OS is designed for security. Then of course, I realized that by "Popular" he meant Mac OSX, Windows, and Linux. Linux of course, we all know is a security mess because Torvalds refuses to deal with security issues.
  - busterarm 10y ago
    I don't think it's a fair statement to blame Linux's security problems on Linus. Linux provides support for lots of security options, but the project's guiding philosophy is "don't break userland". This is 99% of the time what you see Linus cursing out other kernel contributors for. All of the possible options that Linus could _enforce_ would do just that. Heck, a lot of the security problems and blame have nothing to do with the kernel at all and lie squarely with systemd and how it's implemented. If these are dealbreaker features that you must have, Linux is not the tool for you. Your efforts are better spent working to improve OpenBSD.
    - this-dang-guy 10y ago
      Sure, but comments like: "Security people are often the black-and-white kind of people that I can't stand. I think the OpenBSD crowd is a bunch of masturbating monkeys, in that they make such a big deal about concentrating on security to the point where they pretty much admit that nothing else matters to them." "So LSM stays in. No ifs, buts, maybes or anything else. When I see the security people making sane arguments and agreeing on something, that will change. Quite frankly, I expect hell to freeze over before that happens, and pigs will be nesting in trees. But hey, I can hope." He's typically very critical of security-related changes unless they are a massive improvement. I think characterizing him as "functionality over security" is entirely fair. He's not even wrong necessarily.
      - busterarm 10y ago
        The market has sort of proved him right. Companies that use Linux and need security will either get caught with their pants down or they won't. It's up to their level of preparedness and luck. I wouldn't underwrite that if I were an insurer though. Those of us that care are already using something else.
hawski 10y ago
Which is funny, because they say that popular operating systems are not designed with security in mind. They give this as a reason to start from the ground up. I am from the camp saying that currently sole kernel does not an OS make. With this in mind network equipment OSes are certainly not popular ones. Nevertheless there are probably lots of less popular OSes with less popular kernels that are designed with security in mind. Some of them are probably good tries at such a goal. They could be used and extended and it would be probably better securitywise, because of years of bug fixes, that no new OS can have.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  To support your point, the company below did a clean-slate OS tightly integrated with hardware protection features of Itanium CPU's to give people hell trying to compromise their DNS servers. Also re-did the networking stack to assume a hostile instead of benign network. Way over due there. The OS is available for licensing IIRC but OEM's don't give a shit about security if dollars are on the line. ;) http://www.secure64.com/secure-operating-system http://www.secure64.com/secure-operating-system An older one that was pentested by the NSA with positive results reduced attack surface by using PPC embedded board, INTEGRITY microkernel, and carefully-coded state machines. That a small team made this shows both the big companies and startups could be doing way better if they cared. http://www.sentinelsecurity.us/HYDRA/hydra.html http://www.sentinelsecurity.us/HYDRA/hydra.html

72deluxe 10y ago

Yes I would not take their mention of Linux as a personal attack on your operating system of choice. Treat it as someone saying "I don't like pizza" when you do like pizza - it means nothing to your enjoyment of pizza.

IshKebab 10y ago

Linux is very insecure. Maybe you have not been following the news lately.

at-fates-hands 10y ago
But comparatively speaking is still more secure than Windows or OS X?
- this-dang-guy 10y ago
  The biggest issue with Windows isn't its inherent security, it's the way it's used. Most users run everything with super admin rights. Most developers require that for installs. OSX is right behind it, with a culture of laxness that undoes most of the benefits the designers tried to give them.
  - Vendan 10y ago
    I've run into "security software" for domain computers that required every computer to have the same local admin password... and for it to be enabled on every computer.
    - this-dang-guy 10y ago
      Exactly. That's ridiculous thinking far beyond what the OS designer is responsible for.
    - krylon 10y ago
      Hehe, I once saw a corporate network where the root password on all Un*x systems was ${vendor}xyz, i.e. sunxyz for a Solaris box, ibmxyz for AIX, and so forth. I hope at least they disabled root login via ssh.
      - this-dang-guy 10y ago
        I've not seen that, but I have seen one where the root password was the vendor who supported it - like capgem123 ibm123 etc. Not quite as bad, but still pretty weak.

mmalone 10y ago

The article is light on details, but based on the way they talked about it ("impossible to hack in principle") it's likely that they actually can _prove_ that it's more secure than a Linux distro dedicated to security insofar as they're able to prove anything at all. Since the Linux APIs are not formally specified, or verified, it's essentially impossible to _prove_ anything at all (again, in a formal sense). Formal verification can get esoteric quickly, but the state of the art is very impressive (see CompCert, seL4, Agda, Idris). As someone who has been paying attention to this space for some time I welcome anything new that increases exposure. It's cool stuff, and it's probably the future. However, there's a long way to go. Security doesn't stop at the operating system. In fact, the vast majority of security breaches occur due to misconfiguration, bugs, or good old fashioned social engineering. To really build a system that's "secure in principle" you can't stop at the operating system: you need to build a toolchain that makes it easy to build user space applications that are also "secure in principal" and you need to work on the HCI so the security model makes sense / isn't defeated by users. That's going to be a lot of work!

btown 10y ago
There's a difference between "we show you the proof, and you trust us as a service provider that the assumptions are correct" - namely that non-OSS software is loaded in the form it is shown in the proof - and "we show you the proof, and give you all information needed to audit it." Some people will buy based on only the first statement and the brand of the company. Now, we're looking at a top-notch team of OS programmers; presumably, they all have access to do that audit themselves, and at least some of them must be ethical and proficient enough to notice and refuse to ship a backdoor, right? But the influence of a state actor given 14 years to compromise a team shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspersky_Lab#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaspersky_Lab#Controversy
- jodrellblank 10y ago
  Now, we're looking at a top-notch team of OS programmers Kaspersky AV hobbles my core i7 to the point where it can't even respond to keypresses. I have no view on its anti-virus abilities, but my every experience of it (the client and the management tools) is that it's shoddy enterprise churnware. And, of course, they also promote it as if it's the best thing ever. I guess the OS team could be the best ever. But my starting position is "ha ha, as if".

peterkelly 10y ago

> I also don't like how they mentioned Linux I do. Every time I read an article on a new "operating system" someone has released, it turns out to basically just be another Linux distribution, or a new gui/runtime environment running on top of the Linux kernel. Kaspersky took a step back and thought about their requirements, and decided to go with a microkernel architecture because they felt that was a better approach for security (a choice I agree with). It's refreshing to see genuinely new OSs built from the ground up (open source or not), because it shows that not everyone is stuck in the mindset of Linux when they want to innovate in the OS space. That's not to say that Linux is necessarily a bad choice for many scenarios, just that it's great to see projects that don't restrict themselves based on the design of Linux (and, more generally, Unix).

gspetr 10y ago

This is proprietary. Source: ex-employee.

DyslexicAtheist 10y ago

An OS without FOSS targeted at routers is a total meme. the security problems with linux I wouldn't want to dismiss though. I evangelize FOSS since the mid 90ies and we had a good laugh for 20 years whenever Windows messed up (remember trustworthycomputing.com ??). It is hard to dismiss that being accused for 25+ years for insecurity has nothing but boosted their situation. Whatever the perceived quality of Linux, security is currently not it's strongest feat. Systems should become more resilient under pressure over time. But in the case of Linux the problem was lack of external pressure and increasing arrogance and dismissing many of it's shortcomings. People still are way too touchy whenever somebody picks on Linux. The 0day window of vulnerability is a pretty good indicator over how it compares. Thegrugq's comparison of OS security (slightly NSFW) https://grugq.github.io/presentations/COMSEC%20beyond%20encryption.pdf https://grugq.github.io/presentations/COMSEC%20beyond%20encr...

qznc 10y ago
What happened to Pond? The domain is gone: https://pond.imperialviolet.org/ https://pond.imperialviolet.org/