2 ms·
>Where do we go from here? Take a step back, and look at history. It should be unsurprising that the problem was encountered, studied[0] and solved, decades ag
by mikewarot 3y ago
>Where do we go from here?
Take a step back, and look at history. It should be unsurprising that the problem was encountered, studied[0] and solved, decades ago.
During the Viet Nam conflict, the Air Force needed to plan missions with multiple levels of classified data. This couldn't be done with the systems of that era. This resulted in research and development of multi-level security, the Bell-LaPadula model[2], and capability based security[1].
Conceptually, it's elegant, and requires almost no changes in user behavior while solving entire classes of problems with minimal code changes. It's a matter of changing the default from all access to no access, all the way down to the kernel.
Life without it, is like trying to run a modern electrical grid without any circuit breakers, anywhere, ever.
Getting rid of virus scanners alone should be worth the platform switching costs, at least in terms of performance for most users.
[0] https://csrc.nist.rip/publications/history/ande72.pdf https://csrc.nist.rip/publications/history/ande72.pdf
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-based_security https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability-based_security
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%E2%80%93LaPadula_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%E2%80%93LaPadula_model
- alephnerd 3y agoAV is a very small part of the Cybersecurity space.
- int0x2e 3y agoThe difference between theory and practice, is that in theory there is no difference, but in practice - there is. So far, every "provably secure design" I've seen ended up being insecure in practice due to the things people abstract away. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I have not seen it done perfectly thus far. We've seen more success by having many many iterations and widespread usage of common designs and patterns. These are not perfectly secure by any means, but they are secure enough against common threats to make it functionally equivalent until we figure it out.
- mikewarot 3y agoI agree with all you've said. I just feel that our proven insecure system, with default authority, is a really bad foundation to have settled upon. We couldn't have picked a worse default.
- Veserv 3y agoOkay, name the "provably secure designs" that were actually proven and validated by a competent security standard such as the Orange Book Level A or Common Criteria EAL 6/7 that turned out to be insecure in practice. Most people who say that point to designs that were never proven and never validated against anything meaningful, but I am open to seeing a actual example.
- ecdavis 3y agoCool talk to watch: Guarding Against Physical Attacks: The Xbox One Story — Tony Chen, Microsoft https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7VwtOrwceo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7VwtOrwceo