5 ms·

You have to manage a VM. For example, ensuring that the VM has an up to date OS. If you don't care about that, ok, but that's something that Lambda offers. Eph

You have to manage a VM. For example, ensuring that the VM has an up to date OS. If you don't care about that, ok, but that's something that Lambda offers. Ephemerality is a plus as well. Just from a security standpoint, having an ephemeral system means persistence is not possible.

QuadrupleA 3y ago
sudo yum update, once a week
- insanitybit 3y ago
  If it's one VM for a personal website that'll be fine. Good luck explaining that to a SOC2 auditor, or managing that across a fleet.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  Nooo I can't run that, I need to pay for Bezos 3rd yacht!
- flavius29663 3y ago
  that is not nearly enough. You need to make sure the system still works after the update, so you need to carefully control all the versions that go in, test them in lower environments. Also, for any serious application, you will need to do this multiple times, for hundreds or thousands of machines even for small companies. I am on your side, actually, I think managing machines is better than serverless, but it's not that easy.
- declan_roberts 3y ago
  This really doesn’t work in practice. We brought down our whole compute cluster once when someone ran update and it changed some stupid thing. It will happen to you sooner or later also. Updates are always out of band for this reason. That’s why everybody does builds and isolates isolates updates to that process.
  - insanitybit 3y ago
    > We brought down our whole compute cluster once when someone ran update and it changed some stupid thing I've seen this happen twice now, as well.
  - buffet_overflow 3y ago
    I feel like we’re close to that with automated testing and rollbacks. Still, it seems like a ton of complexity for what feels like a fundamental need
- joshuanapoli 3y ago
  a recipe for getting exploited by a supply chain attack
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
dig1 3y ago
These things can be easily automated, and many Linux LTS distros come with a preconfigured system auto-update. > Just from a security standpoint, having an ephemeral system means persistence is not possible. You still have to persist something somewhere, and there is a higher chance someone will figure out SQL injection or unfiltered POST request through your app than hack SSH access to the box. If someone wants to do any real damage, they'd just continuously DDoS that serverless setup, and the cloud provider will kill the company with the bill.
- insanitybit 3y ago
  > These things can be easily automated, Is this something people are out there believing? That patching is something that's easy to automate? I find that kind of nuts, I thought everyone understood that this is, in fact, the opposite of easily automated... > You still have to persist something somewhere, and there is a higher chance someone will figure out SQL injection or unfiltered POST request through your app than hack SSH access to the box. "This entirely separate attack exists therefor completely removing an entire attack primitive haves no value" - how I read this comment.
  - tg180 3y ago
    > "This entirely separate attack exists therefor completely removing an entire attack primitive haves no value" It has value, but it's also true that trusting cloud providers serveless infrastructure introduces additional sets of vulnerabilities due to various reasons. eg: https://sysdig.com/blog/exploit-mitigate-aws-lambdas-mitre/ https://sysdig.com/blog/exploit-mitigate-aws-lambdas-mitre/ Reading your comments, I get the impression that you are used to dealing with clients whose infrastructure management skills are lacking, and they are making a mess of things. While serverless infrastructures certainly eliminate a range of vulnerability classes, it is adoption is unlikely to be sufficient to secure platforms that are inadequate for the threats they face. At the end of the day, someone has to put in the work to ensure that things are patched, safe, and secure, whether the computing model is serverless or not.
    - 3y ago

QuadrupleA 3y ago

sudo yum update, once a week

insanitybit 3y ago
If it's one VM for a personal website that'll be fine. Good luck explaining that to a SOC2 auditor, or managing that across a fleet.
steveBK123 3y ago
Nooo I can't run that, I need to pay for Bezos 3rd yacht!
flavius29663 3y ago
that is not nearly enough. You need to make sure the system still works after the update, so you need to carefully control all the versions that go in, test them in lower environments. Also, for any serious application, you will need to do this multiple times, for hundreds or thousands of machines even for small companies. I am on your side, actually, I think managing machines is better than serverless, but it's not that easy.
declan_roberts 3y ago
This really doesn’t work in practice. We brought down our whole compute cluster once when someone ran update and it changed some stupid thing. It will happen to you sooner or later also. Updates are always out of band for this reason. That’s why everybody does builds and isolates isolates updates to that process.
- insanitybit 3y ago
  > We brought down our whole compute cluster once when someone ran update and it changed some stupid thing I've seen this happen twice now, as well.
- buffet_overflow 3y ago
  I feel like we’re close to that with automated testing and rollbacks. Still, it seems like a ton of complexity for what feels like a fundamental need
joshuanapoli 3y ago
a recipe for getting exploited by a supply chain attack
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

dig1 3y ago

These things can be easily automated, and many Linux LTS distros come with a preconfigured system auto-update. > Just from a security standpoint, having an ephemeral system means persistence is not possible. You still have to persist something somewhere, and there is a higher chance someone will figure out SQL injection or unfiltered POST request through your app than hack SSH access to the box. If someone wants to do any real damage, they'd just continuously DDoS that serverless setup, and the cloud provider will kill the company with the bill.

insanitybit 3y ago
> These things can be easily automated, Is this something people are out there believing? That patching is something that's easy to automate? I find that kind of nuts, I thought everyone understood that this is, in fact, the opposite of easily automated... > You still have to persist something somewhere, and there is a higher chance someone will figure out SQL injection or unfiltered POST request through your app than hack SSH access to the box. "This entirely separate attack exists therefor completely removing an entire attack primitive haves no value" - how I read this comment.
- tg180 3y ago
  > "This entirely separate attack exists therefor completely removing an entire attack primitive haves no value" It has value, but it's also true that trusting cloud providers serveless infrastructure introduces additional sets of vulnerabilities due to various reasons. eg: https://sysdig.com/blog/exploit-mitigate-aws-lambdas-mitre/ https://sysdig.com/blog/exploit-mitigate-aws-lambdas-mitre/ Reading your comments, I get the impression that you are used to dealing with clients whose infrastructure management skills are lacking, and they are making a mess of things. While serverless infrastructures certainly eliminate a range of vulnerability classes, it is adoption is unlikely to be sufficient to secure platforms that are inadequate for the threats they face. At the end of the day, someone has to put in the work to ensure that things are patched, safe, and secure, whether the computing model is serverless or not.
  - 3y ago