4 ms·
It is a good question. Is there a possibility of fundamentally fixing software/hardware to eliminate the vectors that malware exploits to gain a foot hold at al
by morning-coffee 2y ago
It is a good question. Is there a possibility of fundamentally fixing software/hardware to eliminate the vectors that malware exploits to gain a foot hold at all? e.g. not storing return address on the stack or letting it be manipulated by callee? memory bounds enforcement, either statically at compile time, or with the help of hardware, to prevent writing past memory not yours? (Not asking about feasibility of coexisting with or migrating from the current world, just about the possibility of fundamentally solving this at all...)
- com 2y agoEconomic drivers spring to mind, possibly connected with civil or criminal liability in some cases. But this will be the work of at least two human generations; our tools and work practices are woefully inadequate, so even if the pointy haired bosses (fearing imprisonment for gratuitous failure) and grasping, greedy investors fear (for the destruction of “hard earned” capital), it’s not going to be done in the snap of our fingers, not least because the people occupying technology industry - and this is an overgeneralisation, but I’m pretty angry so I’m going to let it stand - Just Don’t Care Enough. If we cared, it would be nigh on impossible for my granny to get tricked to pop her Windows desktop by opening an attachment in her email client. It wouldn’t be possible to sell (or buy!) cloud services for which we don’t get security data in real time and signal about what our vendor advises to do if worst comes to worst. And on and on.