README, SECURITY: Clarify that bubblewrap does not define a security model

bubblewrap can provide a robust security boundary that severely limits
functionality, or it can provide full functionality without any attempt
at being a security boundary, or anything in between those extremes.
If a caller of bubblewrap chooses inappropriate command-line arguments
for their desired security model, then bubblewrap will not provide the
security model they are aiming for, but this is not a bubblewrap
vulnerability.

Apparently this isn't clear to everyone, so try to clarify.

The one place where bubblewrap *does* define some sort of security
policy for itself is when it's setuid root, in which case it's
responsible for preventing users from carrying out privilege escalation
attacks like CVE-2020-5291.

Resolves: https://github.com/containers/bubblewrap/issues/555
Signed-off-by: Simon McVittie <smcv@collabora.com>
This commit is contained in:
Simon McVittie 2023-03-02 17:12:03 +00:00 committed by Alexander Larsson
parent da63f2bddb
commit 795eeee77e
2 changed files with 62 additions and 2 deletions

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@ -35,8 +35,8 @@ The original bubblewrap code existed before user namespaces - it inherits code f
which in turn distantly derives from
[linux-user-chroot](https://git.gnome.org/browse/linux-user-chroot).
Security
--------
System security
---------------
The maintainers of this tool believe that it does not, even when used
in combination with typical software installed on that distribution,
@ -47,6 +47,27 @@ In particular, bubblewrap uses `PR_SET_NO_NEW_PRIVS` to turn off
setuid binaries, which is the [traditional way](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroot#Limitations) to get out of things
like chroots.
Sandbox security
----------------
bubblewrap is a tool for constructing sandbox environments.
bubblewrap is not a complete, ready-made sandbox with a specific security
policy.
Some of bubblewrap's use-cases want a security boundary between the sandbox
and the real system; other use-cases want the ability to change the layout of
the filesystem for processes inside the sandbox, but do not aim to be a
security boundary.
As a result, the level of protection between the sandboxed processes and
the host system is entirely determined by the arguments passed to
bubblewrap.
Whatever program constructs the command-line arguments for bubblewrap
(often a larger framework like Flatpak, libgnome-desktop, sandwine
or an ad-hoc script) is responsible for defining its own security model,
and choosing appropriate bubblewrap command-line arguments to implement
that security model.
Users
-----

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@ -1,3 +1,42 @@
## Security and Disclosure Information Policy for the bubblewrap Project
The bubblewrap Project follows the [Security and Disclosure Information Policy](https://github.com/containers/common/blob/HEAD/SECURITY.md) for the Containers Projects.
### System security
If bubblewrap is setuid root, then the goal is that it does not allow
a malicious local user to do anything that would not have been possible
on a kernel that allows unprivileged users to create new user namespaces.
For example, [CVE-2020-5291](https://github.com/containers/bubblewrap/security/advisories/GHSA-j2qp-rvxj-43vj)
was treated as a security vulnerability in bubblewrap.
If bubblewrap is not setuid root, then it is not a security boundary
between the user and the OS, because anything bubblewrap could do, a
malicious user could equally well do by writing their own tool equivalent
to bubblewrap.
### Sandbox security
bubblewrap is a toolkit for constructing sandbox environments.
bubblewrap is not a complete, ready-made sandbox with a specific security
policy.
Some of bubblewrap's use-cases want a security boundary between the sandbox
and the real system; other use-cases want the ability to change the layout of
the filesystem for processes inside the sandbox, but do not aim to be a
security boundary.
As a result, the level of protection between the sandboxed processes and
the host system is entirely determined by the arguments passed to
bubblewrap.
Whatever program constructs the command-line arguments for bubblewrap
(often a larger framework like Flatpak, libgnome-desktop, sandwine
or an ad-hoc script) is responsible for defining its own security model,
and choosing appropriate bubblewrap command-line arguments to implement
that security model.
For example,
[CVE-2017-5226](https://github.com/flatpak/flatpak/security/advisories/GHSA-7gfv-rvfx-h87x)
(in which a Flatpak app could send input to a parent terminal using the
`TIOCSTI` ioctl) is considered to be a Flatpak vulnerability, not a
bubblewrap vulnerability.