4 ms·
ASLR is effectively security by obscurity (albeit a quite good application thereof).
by _pmf_ 10y ago
ASLR is effectively security by obscurity (albeit a quite good application thereof).
- tptacek 10y agoNo, it's not. Security by obscurity refers to the cost increase you can inflict on an attacker by depriving them of knowledge of the design or implementation of a system. By the definition you're using, any cryptographic feature would count as "security by obscurity".
- phkahler 10y agoASLR makes it hard to know where code is located in the address space. That seems like obscurity doesn't it?
- scienceman 10y agoThe same way crypto obscures your text.
- staticassertion 10y agoEntropy isn't obscurity.
- phkahler 10y agoI like this clarification the best.
- mikeash 10y agoThe term is somewhat more restricted than its literal meaning would imply. "Security through obscurity" specifically refers to obscurity in the design or implementation of a system. Obscuring explicitly secret values used by the system is not "security through obscurity." Consider: keeping crypto keys secret is a fundamental requirement of basically every secure system. That means they're "obscured," but it's not security through obscurity. When it comes to ASLR, the locations of code within the address space are in pretty much the same role as crypto keys. The problem isn't that it's security through obscurity, it's that there are ways to leak the contents of those "keys," and they aren't very large.
- wolf550e 10y ago"security through obscurity" refers only to violations of Kerckhoffs's principle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerckhoffs's_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerckhoffs's_principle
- rocqua 10y agoNo, the 'algorithm' for ASLR is public. All that an attacker is missing is the seed that determines how it is instantiated. ASLR doesn't violate Kerckhoffs' principle.