Qubes – Secure Desktop OS Using Security by Compartmentalization
wiki.qubes-os.org
wiki.qubes-os.org
It's pretty cool in that it appears to have some tripwire-esque stuff so that you get useful logs when malware does try to do dodgy things in their sandbox. It sounds like it can alert the user with something like, "your browser might be compromised, start a new session" and everything is captured/saved so that admins can come back later to do forensics with the session that went bad.
Sandboxie was one of the original Windows application virtualization options 10 years ago.
I was hoping something would become the 'Docker for Windows' but these programs are being snapped up by software security companies.
He absolutely tears apart application sandboxes like "Sandboxie".
[1] http://www.invisiblethingslab.com/resources/2014/Software_co...
Out of curiosity: What's the reason for them being proprietary while the rest of the system seems to be free software?
If there's no performance loss, great.
And I really appreciate that they've tried to solve XDMCP weaknesses.
Now instead of one layer with hardware contact, you have two (assuming you want performance too). Twice the attack surface.
In the real world, if someone exploits your PDF reader, they don't have to circumvent your OS: your OS hands over everything you can access, by design. One could argue that a better security model baked into the OS would make more sense than a virtualization hack, but the latter has the advantage of actually existing.
Any attempt to use anything else leads to termination.
The system administrator at installation time.
> What defines which resources they are given?
Applications just have a request list of what they require.
If the administrator doesn't allow them for the given application modules (executable, dynamic library, function call,...), bad luck.
That is correct. This is probably why privesc exploits are much more expensive than adobe reader exploits.
You are kind of arguing against yourself here.
Could you expand on that statement? By definition, only one layer can own each hardware component.
But compartmentalization does mean that barring a hypervisor exploit, each exploit can potentially be prevented from affecting more than a small part of the system.
I care a whole lot less if Chrome is exploited if it can't access my ssh keys, for example (not that I wouldn't still care, but the potential damage would be limited).
Edit: But the way you talk to me, obviously I must be stupid.
Compared to the few hundred lines in the hypervisor providing VM-level isolation you'd be a bit mad to say that these are equivalent means of isolation.
[1] http://www.invisiblethingslab.com/resources/2014/Software_co...