Syscalls

[James W. Hoeft]

Steve Grubb wrote:
> On Wednesday 28 February 2007 09:53, Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu wrote:
>> A malicious root user (or any user wanting to bypass a logging login shell)
>> could just 'vi /tmp/foo', and then use '!your_command_here -h -x -Q 3' or
>> whatever they wanted to do. Â 
> 
> I don't think any security target or standard assumes that you have a 
> malicious root user. I think that crosses the line from recording what 
> actions are performed to potential criminal investigation.

In our world, the primary purpose of audit logs is to support a criminal 
investigation - and malicious root user is assumed. Two options were 
presented: ensure audit files are immutable and if system isn't auditing 
shut it down; or put root password under two-man control. (couldn't 
accomplish first in time frame, so had to go with second, which is an 
incredible pain for the admins - hope to change that with next 
generation/selinux).

>> Probably what's *really* needed is a sebek-style logger that traces all
>> terminal activity on that connection. http://www.honeynet.org/tools/sebek/
>> but somebody would have to retarget that code to talk to the audit daemon
>> rather than an external server on another box.
> 
> Yeah, a keylogger is what you'd need and that probably goes beyond what audit 
> should be doing. If you want to record a lot of data, then you could also 
> add:
> 
> -a always,entry -S execve -F 'auid>=500' -F uid=0
> 
> -Steve

Jim