TCP Initial Sequence Numbers Randomization to prevent TCP ISN based CPU Information Leaks.
The Linux kernel has a side-channel information leak bug. It is leaked in any outgoing traffic. This can allow side-channel attacks because sensitive information about a system's CPU activity is leaked.
It may prove very dangerous for long-running cryptographic operations. [A]
Research has demonstrated that it can be used for de-anonymization of location-hidden services. [1]
Clock skew,
- is leaked through TCP ISNs (Initial Sequence Number) by the Linux kernel.
- can be remotely detected through observing ISNs.
- can be induced by an attacker through producing load on the victim machine.
Quote Security researcher Steven J. Murdoch (University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK) [B]
"What the Linux ISN leaks is the difference between two timestamps, not the timestamp itself. A difference lets you work out drift and skew, which can help someone fingerprint the computer hardware, its environment and load. Of course that only works if you can probe a computer, and maintain the same source/destination port and IP address."
Quote Mike Perry, developer at The Tor Project [A]:
"... it is worth complaining to the kernel developers for the simple reason that adding the 64ns timer post-hash probably does leak side channels about CPU activity, and that may prove very dangerous for long-running cryptographic operations (along the lines of the hot-or-not issue). Unfortunately, someone probably needs to produce more research papers before they will listen."
tirdad is a kernel module to hot-patch the Linux kernel to generate random TCP Initial Sequence Numbers for IPv4 TCP connections.
You can refer to this bog post to get familiar with the original issue:
- An analysis of TCP secure SN generation in Linux and its privacy issues
- https://bitguard.wordpress.com/?p=982
This metapackage depends on tirdad-dkms.
References:
- [1] https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/papers/ccs06hotornot.pdf
- [2] http://caia.swin.edu.au/talks/CAIA-TALK-080728A.pdf
- [3] http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sjm217/papers/ih05coverttcp.pdf
- [4] https://stackoverflow.com/a/12232126
- [5] http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source/net/core/secure_seq.c?v=3.16
- [6] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/16659
- [7] https://phabricator.whonix.org/T543
- [A] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/16659#comment:10
- [B] https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/16659#comment:18
1. Download Whonix's Signing Key.
wget https://www.whonix.org/patrick.asc
Users can check Whonix Signing Key for better security.
2. Add Whonix's signing key.
sudo apt-key --keyring /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/whonix.gpg add ~/patrick.asc
3. Add Whonix's APT repository.
echo "deb https://deb.whonix.org bullseye main contrib non-free" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/whonix.list
4. Update your package lists.
sudo apt-get update
5. Install tirdad.
sudo apt-get install tirdad
Any standard Debian build tools can be used. For example. Quick and easy.
dpkg-buildpackage -b
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