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So on desktop, if I spin up a VM with networking disabled I feel pretty confident I can run anything safely, even malware is not going to escape. What's the cu
by ForkMeOnTinder 3y ago
So on desktop, if I spin up a VM with networking disabled I feel pretty confident I can run anything safely, even malware is not going to escape.
What's the current state of the art for Android virtualization? Let's assume we're talking about the newest Pixel and newest Android version. Is there any way to safely run malware or the Facebook app in some sort of air-gapped container and throw it away when you're done?
- heavyset_go 3y agoPretty sure Android already uses Linux containers/namespaces for app isolation.
- saagarjha 3y agoIt uses separate UIDs mostly.
- phone8675309 3y agoAlong with SELinux
- seabrookmx 3y agoYou're thinking of ChromeOS I think, which uses a combination of containers and virtualization (via the same VMM in this article) for Linux and Android apps..
- heavyset_go 3y agoYeah, apparently Android uses users and namespaces, but not containers as we typically know them like ChromeOS does.
- fleventynine 3y ago> if I spin up a VM with networking disabled I feel pretty confident I can run anything safely, even malware is not going to escape. You are putting too much faith in your VM monitor to keep you safe. There's a lot of attack surface in (for example) QEMU peripherals, and there's plenty of examples of VM escape [1]. CrosVM is probably the only publicly available VMM I'd be willing to trust, and even then I'd be nervous running state-sponsored malware on a machine with important data. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=qemu+vm+escape https://www.google.com/search?q=qemu+vm+escape
- monocasa 3y agoI'd probably trust firecracker too since it was designed specifically to avoid qemu's attack surface and runs in production for Amazon.
- bonzini 3y agoWhile QEMU uses C, which is not great, it has on its side 15+ years of hardening by the KVM developers. The problem with QEMU is not so much insecurity, it's that it contains the kitchen sink. However, most of the exploits you'll find in QEMU are against configurations that are never used in real world virtualization scenarios where guests are untrusted. You can recognize them because hardware not commonly used with untrusted guests does not get a CVE. For a while, slirp was the remaining major issue because it was used way beyond the original intention. But now it's been tamed and there's also passt, a much higher performance and much more secure implementation of user-mode networking.
- ClassyJacket 3y ago*malware like the Facebook app
- jmprspret 3y ago> Is there any way to safely run malware or the Facebook app in some sort of air-gapped container and throw it away when you're done? User profiles can be used in this exact way. Guest user if you intend to install+wipe it right away (though this will prove cumbersome eventually due to having to reinstall the app every time, etc). There is a significant isolation benefit to them, though not currently virtualized. With the isolation can come usability issues. Like transferring files from one profile to another. They can very slow however (slow to load+setup, and switch between, I mean. when you're inside its effectively a separate, fresh, OS install).