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+ <H1>[Mageia-dev] About syslinux &amp; libpng</H1>
+ <B>Michael Scherer</B>
+ <A HREF="mailto:mageia-dev%40mageia.org?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BMageia-dev%5D%20About%20syslinux%20%26%20libpng&In-Reply-To=%3C1317650316.2489.13.camel%40akroma.ephaone.org%3E"
+ TITLE="[Mageia-dev] About syslinux &amp; libpng">misc at zarb.org
+ </A><BR>
+ <I>Mon Oct 3 15:58:36 CEST 2011</I>
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+<PRE>Le jeudi 29 septembre 2011 &#224; 20:41 +0200, Erwan Velu a &#233;crit :
+&gt;<i> Le 28/09/2011 22:13, D.Morgan a &#233;crit :
+</I>&gt;<i> &gt; On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 9:56 PM, Erwan Velu&lt;<A HREF="https://www.mageia.org/mailman/listinfo/mageia-dev">erwanaliasr1 at gmail.com</A>&gt; wrote:
+</I>&gt;<i> &gt;&gt; I'm currently updating Syslinux 4.04 and I'm currently facing a trouble as,
+</I>&gt;<i> &gt;&gt; historically speaking, we do remove the included libpng by the system one.
+</I>&gt;<i> &gt;&gt;
+</I>&gt;<i> &gt;&gt; The compilation process fails. I was wondering if we really consider
+</I>&gt;<i> &gt;&gt; replacing the libpng of syslinux as a security issue.
+</I>&gt;<i> &gt;&gt;
+</I>&gt;<i> &gt;&gt; Sec team ? What's your opinion on it ?
+</I>&gt;<i> &gt;&gt;
+</I>&gt;<i> &gt;&gt; Cheers,
+</I>&gt;<i> &gt;&gt;
+</I>&gt;<i> &gt; hi,
+</I>&gt;<i> &gt;
+</I>&gt;<i> &gt; i take my security hat on, we prefer when possible when we use the system libs.
+</I>&gt;<i> &gt; i have not looked but which libpng is included ?
+</I>&gt;<i>
+</I>&gt;<i> It take the libpng-source to replace the current syslinux code.
+</I>&gt;<i>
+</I>&gt;<i> The point is syslinux is a bootloader that obviously don't share libs
+</I>&gt;<i> with the rest of the system.
+</I>&gt;<i> Considering that we can attack the bootloader via a picture means you
+</I>&gt;<i> compromized the picture. If you can change the picture located at /boot,
+</I>&gt;<i> means that you can compromize the booting parameters too.
+</I>
+No, that's not the way it work.
+
+The problem by bundling libpng is the following :
+- imagine there is a security issue in libpng ( like it did in the past,
+and like it happened on libz, or others ). Let's suppose also the
+problem is a simple buffer overflow. So using this buffer overflow,
+someone reading a image would trigger the error, who could be crafted to
+erase the stack, and inject code in the process.
+
+So if the error is not fixed, I can simply say on irc : &quot;oh, here is a
+picture of a cute duck on <A HREF="http://example.org/~misc/duck.png">http://example.org/~misc/duck.png</A>&quot;. You
+download, you execute my code, you have lost.
+
+But since the libpng would be fixed, this would not work. Except that we
+cannot garantee that it is fixed everywhere.
+
+Except if I start to replace this by &quot;here is a nice syslinux boot image
+with a duck&quot;. And then my code is run by syslinux, just because someone
+took my png picture.
+
+So no, bundling is not without causing trouble.
+
+&gt;<i> So if we take this road of removing bootloader's libs, shall we also
+</I>&gt;<i> remove the jpeg/gz/gcc/... libs too, and maybe for other bootloaders too ?
+</I>
+&gt;<i> I do understand the need for the application that runs under linux...
+</I>&gt;<i> but about the bootloaders...
+</I>
+Unless I am wrong, a bootloader run on ring 0 or can even ( like xen )
+be used to run the kernel in a specific separate memory space ( ie,
+virtualisation ). This could open a whole new range of problem ( like
+the Blue Pill concept code published 5 years ago by Joanna Rutkowska )
+
+So I think that bootloader requires more consideration than regular
+application.
+
+&gt;<i> What's your thoughts about it ?
+</I>&gt;<i> Would you agree on keep syslinux untouched regarding the png lib ?
+</I>
+For reasons explained before, I would rather disagree.
+
+
+--
+Michael Scherer
+
+</PRE>
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+
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