[Info-vax] Android development Was Re: OT: Larry Ellison takes retirement as CEO of Oracle

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2014-09-21 19:13, Paul Sture wrote:
> On 2014-09-21, David Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>> Johnny Billquist wrote:
>>> On 2014-09-20 16:48, Paul Sture wrote:
>>
>>>> And to keep this on topic for c.o.v. VSI will have to acquaint
>>>> themselves with the topic of malware which runs on x64 systems.
>>>
>>> ???
>>> Not really. Unless it's built for VMS, it will not run (unless VMS
>>> suddenly starts being able to run Unix binaries, which I seriously doubt
>>> will happen).
>>
>> Well, let's think about this a bit.
>>
>> x86 has an instruction set.
>>
>> If you can get some x86 instructions into memory, and get them to start
>> executing, that would be an issue.
>
> Yes.  This is what the phrase "Arbitrary code execution" that you see in
> reports of attacks which take advantage of buffer overflows and zero day
> exploits.
>
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrary_code_execution>
>
> "Most of these vulnerabilities allow the execution of *machine code*..."
>
> It doesn't necessarily mean launching a fully-fledged executable. Just
> finding a hole the first time round with the idea of coming back later to
> exploit it might be the aim.
>
> The next time the aim could simply be leaving "something" around to assist
> in a future and more sophisticated attack.
>
> continuing the above quoted sentence:
>
> "... and most exploits therefore inject and execute shellcode to give an
> attacker an easy way to manually run arbitrary commands."
>
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellcode>
>
> Now that's not going to be as simple an approach on VMS processes which
> don't have CLI capability  but you can see where this is going.
>
>> Not saying this could be done.  Just mentioning one thing that might be
>> possible.
>>
>> Would also doubt that most malware would know what to do with VMS.
>
> Security by obscurity (which does work to a certain extent, but won't keep
> the determined and talented pro out).
>
> Until Stuxnet you wouldn't have thought that centrifuges would be a
> target.  The target could be something attached to a VMS system rather
> than VMS itself...
>
>> After the Israelies being able to tell which encryption algorithm was
>> running by the sounds of the power supply, I'm not sure you can say
>> "never" to anything ....
>
> Indeed.

While a fun topic, we have now come back to a point where we are talking 
about an exploit designed specifically for VMS.

That is definitely possible, but is not more relevant when running on a 
VAX than on an x86. If you have a piece of code designed specifically to 
try and exploit a VMS system, I'm sure you can come up with a whole 
bunch of potential problems, but it's not something new that will happen 
when VMS is ported to x86.

So the whole argument about VMS suddenly becoming much more exposed 
because it will be running on x86 is just a red herring.

No machine code exploits, neither for userspace, nor kernelspace, that 
exists for other operating systems, have much of any relevance for VMS.

VMS havae its own problems. Let's not deny that. But implying that the 
problems will be tenfold just because it is running on an architecture 
that is more spread is nonsense.

	Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol