[PLUG] Re: tinydns problems... help?

Wil Cooley wcooley at nakedape.cc
Fri Feb 11 18:59:08 UTC 2005


On 2005-02-11, Rich Burroughs <rich at paranoid.org> wrote:

> I think there are things you can do to run BIND more securely, and those 
> have thankfully become more standard practice, but that's not the same 
> as saying it's "just as secure." There have been quite a few holes in 
> BIND in the pasr that led to root compromises. Now, you don't have to 
> run it as root, and you can run it chrooted, and those things help 
> greatly limit the damage that can be done. But there were some big 
> problems in the code in the past, and I would argue that's not "just as 
> secure."

But BIND 9 was total rewrite by someone skilled in writing secure C, which Paul
Vixie readily claims he is incapable of.  Have there been any root exploits for
BIND 9?  I don't know; there have been a few non-root exploits, but not many.

> Yeah, I don't buy that either :) I can't believe that there are not some 
> skilled people out there with black hats on who have gone through that 
> code very throroughly. It wouldn't be just about the money - someone 
> could make a bit of a name for themselves by collecting a bounty on one 
> of Dan's programs, which are usually regarded as very secure.

>From what I've read, there are those who claim to have found exploits in
qmail, but he dismisses them and won't pay.  I cannot really say whether
it's true or not.

Wil
-- 
Wil Cooley                                 wcooley at nakedape.cc
Naked Ape Consulting                        http://nakedape.cc
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