5 ms·

Because the more complexity you have in software, the harder it is to keep it secure. Even security mitigations can potentially introduce another vulnerabilitie

by bigato 7y ago

Because the more complexity you have in software, the harder it is to keep it secure. Even security mitigations can potentially introduce another vulnerabilities. This is one of the reasons that as a general rule we should strive for software to be kept simple.

hvidgaard 7y ago
Given the nature of this software, it's natural to have mitigations against side channel attacks. They happen multiple times, and will happen in the future, no matter how secure we believe the hardware is. With that in mind, it's probably the better strategy to use slower and more complicated algorithms to protect the user. This would mean that when a side channel attack becomes known, if the algorithm already protects against it, nothing have to be done. Unlike if a fix needs to be made, you not face the problem you've outlined. I believe it's better to have a better baseline security at the cost of complexity, because it means less hotfixes needs to be released.
- bigato 7y ago
  Side channel attacks are only possible because the hardware is currently vulnerable. They are not a law of nature. Once you solve the vulnerability at its root and it becomes physically inexistent, and there's no more running hardware in the market that has such vulnerability, it would make no sense to keep such software mitigation.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    Businesses still run mainframes from the 1970s - so, get ready to wait a century.
    - bigato 7y ago
      Well yes, but that's a pretty special case. Those running such ancient hardware keep their own software and patches, and you don't see many software vendors supporting them unless their are being very well paid. OpenBSD itself does not support even VAX anymore, and developers felt pretty happy when they finally deleted large portions of specific code. Ubuntu is talking about dropping i386. Given enough time, the burden of supporting old hardware outweight the benefits for pretty much everybody, so it makes sense that it should fall on the shoulders of those who decided keeping the old hardware was a good idea.
  - nickpsecurity 7y ago
    Clive Robinson on Schneier's blog predicted lots of these problems after arguing they were a law of nature. He said any form of matter or energy connecting two machines might create a side channel. He said we'd have to clock all the inputs and outputs, make them predictable, and then "energy gap" the systems. We both already knew about CPU leaks since that was described as risky in 1990's. Sure enough, air-gap-jumping malware and processor leaks showed up. Later, getting a high-level view of hardware reinforced it was a law of nature. First, there's all kinds of RF leaks that attackers might pick up from normal operation. Second, most systems aren't fault/leak-proof if attackers actively hit the system with different physical effects or RF. Finally, each process shrink increases how easily chips, including mitigations on them, break. It looked like the stuff at 28nm was kind of broken by design with fixes and stuff built in to delay failures user would notice. This all sounds like the laws of physics are a huge obstacle to computers (a) working at all and (b) keeping secrets. Achieving (a) takes hundreds of millions to billions in R&D each year. I can only imaging what (b) might take.

by bigato 7y ago

hvidgaard 7y ago

Given the nature of this software, it's natural to have mitigations against side channel attacks. They happen multiple times, and will happen in the future, no matter how secure we believe the hardware is. With that in mind, it's probably the better strategy to use slower and more complicated algorithms to protect the user. This would mean that when a side channel attack becomes known, if the algorithm already protects against it, nothing have to be done. Unlike if a fix needs to be made, you not face the problem you've outlined. I believe it's better to have a better baseline security at the cost of complexity, because it means less hotfixes needs to be released.

bigato 7y ago
Side channel attacks are only possible because the hardware is currently vulnerable. They are not a law of nature. Once you solve the vulnerability at its root and it becomes physically inexistent, and there's no more running hardware in the market that has such vulnerability, it would make no sense to keep such software mitigation.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  Businesses still run mainframes from the 1970s - so, get ready to wait a century.
  - bigato 7y ago
    Well yes, but that's a pretty special case. Those running such ancient hardware keep their own software and patches, and you don't see many software vendors supporting them unless their are being very well paid. OpenBSD itself does not support even VAX anymore, and developers felt pretty happy when they finally deleted large portions of specific code. Ubuntu is talking about dropping i386. Given enough time, the burden of supporting old hardware outweight the benefits for pretty much everybody, so it makes sense that it should fall on the shoulders of those who decided keeping the old hardware was a good idea.
- nickpsecurity 7y ago
  Clive Robinson on Schneier's blog predicted lots of these problems after arguing they were a law of nature. He said any form of matter or energy connecting two machines might create a side channel. He said we'd have to clock all the inputs and outputs, make them predictable, and then "energy gap" the systems. We both already knew about CPU leaks since that was described as risky in 1990's. Sure enough, air-gap-jumping malware and processor leaks showed up. Later, getting a high-level view of hardware reinforced it was a law of nature. First, there's all kinds of RF leaks that attackers might pick up from normal operation. Second, most systems aren't fault/leak-proof if attackers actively hit the system with different physical effects or RF. Finally, each process shrink increases how easily chips, including mitigations on them, break. It looked like the stuff at 28nm was kind of broken by design with fixes and stuff built in to delay failures user would notice. This all sounds like the laws of physics are a huge obstacle to computers (a) working at all and (b) keeping secrets. Achieving (a) takes hundreds of millions to billions in R&D each year. I can only imaging what (b) might take.