Protecting sensitive data [was Re: Cleanup for cryptographic algorithms vs. compiler optimizations]

[C. P. Ghost]

2010/6/14 Peter Jeremy <peterjeremy at acm.org>:
> On 2010-Jun-13 10:07:15 +0200, Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des at des.no> wrote:
>>You always overwrite passphrases, keys etc. as soon as you're done with
>>them so they don't end up in a crash dump or on a swap disk or
>>something.
>
> Which brings up an associated issue: By default, mlock(2) can only be
> used by root processes.  It would be really handy if non-privileged
> processes could lock small amounts of VM so they can securely handle
> passwords, passphrases, keys, etc.  MAC offers the option of allowing
> non-root processes access to mlock() but doesn't provide any
> restrictions on the amount of memory they can lock.

Interesting!

>From an admin point of view, this behavior could them be enabled
or disabled via sysctl(8), and this sysctl variable could define what
"small" means exactly (#nr of pages per process maybe?)

Another sysctl variable should probably define how many pages
can be locked in general by all non-privileged processes, to prevent
malicious programs like fork bombs to mlock the whole memory.

> Peter Jeremy

-cpghost.

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