Zack's Kernel News
Zack's Kernel News
Zack Brown reports on securing security patches, breezing through security patches, and no bug like a hardware bug.
Securing Security Patches
Ironically, Kees Cook submitted some security patches to Linus Torvalds for the Linux kernel, but he didn't take the proper security precautions to verify his own identity. Linus took one look at the patches and said, "Wait, what? This is not the key you usually use, and it isn't the one that is in the k.org pgp key repository. The patches look fine, but no, I'm not pulling hardening patches without proper signing…."
It's standard practice for kernel contributors to sign their patches with a PGP key to create a "chain of custody" that clearly identifies who wrote which patch. This chain of custody is important in case there are any questions about copyright and licensing violations. It also prevents hostile actors masquerading as friendly developers from slipping some malicious code into the kernel source tree.
In recent days, the importance of this practice has become underscored because some prominent open source code has been found to be infected with malicious patches. While the damage in that case seems to have been mitigated, the security of all open source software does depend on the vigilance of the people maintaining those projects, including the Linux kernel.
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