Bugtraq: Proposed "solution" is ugly workaround, in fact [Re: severe error in SSH session key recovery patch]

[Pavel Machek <pavel () UCW CZ>]

Hi!

> > 1)    {
> > 2)      static time_t last_kill_time = 0;
> > 3)      if (time(NULL) - last_kill_time > 60 && getppid() != 1)
> > 4)        {
> > 5)         last_kill_time = time(NULL);
> > 6)         kill(SIGALRM, getppid());
> > 7)       }
> > 8)      fatal("Bad result from rsa_private_decrypt");
> > 9)    }

This looks more like ugly workaround than proper fix to me. If
attacker can do 400*60 requests per second, he can still decrypt
private key.

Solution would be to reconfig after number of _attempts_, not
time. Plus, it is still racy, as it uses kill().

What about attacker doing 400*3600 requests before kill actually
reaches the parent?

                                                                Pavel
--
I'm pavel () ucw cz  "In my country we have almost anarchy and I don't care."
Panos Katsaloulis describing me w.r.t. patents at discuss () linmodems org