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From: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
To: "Larry H." <research@subreption.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org,
	Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
	pageexec@freemail.hu, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Use kzfree in mac80211 key handling to enforce data	sanitization
Date: Sat, 30 May 2009 22:14:46 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <4A21E816.4050203@redhat.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20090531015801.GB8941@oblivion.subreption.com>

Larry H. wrote:
> [PATCH] Use kzfree in mac80211 key handling to enforce data sanitization
> 
> This patch replaces the kfree() calls within the mac80211 WEP RC4 key
> handling and ieee80211 management APIs with kzfree(), to enforce
> sanitization of the key buffer contents.
> 
> This prevents the keys from persisting on memory, potentially
> leaking to other kernel users after re-allocation of the memory by
> the LIFO allocators, or in coldboot attack scenarios. Information can be
> leaked as well due to use of uninitialized variables, or other bugs.
> 
> This patch doesn't affect fastpaths.

This seems to be essentially what Ingo proposed.

Clearing out a buffer that held a wifi key on free
makes sense, even for systems that are not in
paranoid mode.

> Signed-off-by: Larry Highsmith <research@subreption.com>

Acked-by: Rik van Riiel <riel@redhat.com>

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      reply	other threads:[~2009-05-31  2:14 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 2+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2009-05-31  1:58 Larry H.
2009-05-31  2:14 ` Rik van Riel [this message]

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