Re: A Famous Security Bug

On 2024-03-21, Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> wrote:

Kaz Kylheku <433-929-6894@kylheku.com> writes:

On 2024-03-21, David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 20/03/2024 19:54, Kaz Kylheku wrote:

On 2024-03-20, Stefan Ram <ram@zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:

   A "famous security bug":
>
void f( void )
{ char buffer[ MAX ];
   /* . . . */
   memset( buffer, 0, sizeof( buffer )); }
>
   . Can you see what the bug is?

 
I don't know about "the bug", but conditions can be identified under
which that would have a problem executing, like MAX being in excess
of available automatic storage.
 
If the /*...*/ comment represents the elision of some security sensitive
code, where the memset is intended to obliterate secret information,
of course, that obliteration is not required to work.
 
After the memset, the buffer has no next use, so the all the assignments
performed by memset to the bytes of buffer are dead assignments that can
be elided.
 
To securely clear memory, you have to use a function for that purpose
that is not susceptible to optimization.
 
If you're not doing anything stupid, like link time optimization, an
external function in another translation unit (a function that the
compiler doesn't recognize as being an alias or wrapper for memset)
ought to suffice.

>
Using LTO is not "stupid".  Relying on people /not/ using LTO, or not
using other valid optimisations, is "stupid".

>
LTO is a nonconforming optimization. It destroys the concept that
when a translation unit is translated, the semantic analysis is
complete, such that the only remaining activity is resolution of
external references (linkage), and that the semantic analysis of one
translation unit deos not use information about another translation
unit.
>
This has not yet changed in last April's N3096 draft, where
translation phases 7 and 8 are:
>
  7. White-space characters separating tokens are no longer significant.
     Each preprocessing token is converted into a token. The resulting
     tokens are syntactically and semantically analyzed and translated
     as a translation unit.
>
  8. All external object and function references are resolved. Library
     components are linked to satisfy external references to functions
     and objects not defined in the current translation. All such
     translator output is collected into a program image which contains
     information needed for execution in its execution environment.
>
and before that, the Program Structure section says:
>
  The separate translation units of a program communicate by (for
  example) calls to functions whose identifiers have external linkage,
  manipulation of objects whose identifiers have external linkage, or
  manipulation of data files. Translation units may be separately
  translated and then later linked to produce an executable program.
>
LTO deviates from the the model that translation units are separate,
and the conceptual steps of phases 7 and 8.

[...]
>
Link time optimization is as valid as cross-function optimization *as
long as* it doesn't change the defined behavior of the program.

It always does; the interaction of a translation unit with another
is an externally visible aspect of the C program. (That can be inferred
from the rules which forbid semantic analysis across translation
units, only linkage.)

That's why we can have a real world security issue caused by zeroing
being optimized away.

The rules spelled out in ISO C allow us to unit test a translation
unit by linking it to some harness, and be sure it has exactly the
same behaviors when linked to the production program.

If I have some translation unit in which there is a function foo, such
that when I call foo, it then calls an external function bar, that's
observable. I can link that unit to a program which supplies bar,
containing a printf call, then call foo and verify that the printf call
is executed.

Since ISO C says that the semantic analysis has been done (that
unit having gone through phase 7), we can take it for granted as a
done-and-dusted property of that translation unit that it calls bar
whenever its foo is invoked.

Say I have a call to foo in main, and the definition of foo is in
another translation unit.  In the absence of LTO, the compiler will have
to generate a call to foo.  If LTO is able to determine that foo doesn't
do anything, it can remove the code for the function call, and the
resulting behavior of the linked program is unchanged.

There always situations in which optimizations that have been forbidden
don't cause a problem, and are even desirable.

If you have LTO turned on, you might be programming in GNU C or Clang C
or whatever, not standard C.

Sometimes programs have the same interpretation in GNU C and standard
C, or the same interpretation to someone who doesn't care about certain
differences.

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