Re: [logs] Due Diligence for Admission in Court

From: Dan Rowles (daniel.rowlesat_private)
Date: Fri Dec 07 2001 - 02:16:36 PST

  • Next message: Richard Welty: "Re[2]: [logs] Due Diligence for Admission in Court"

    Hmmm.... I can think of a few real world situations where you would want
    users to have access to a box, but would also want to ensure that the
    logs were reliable. 
    
    But my real point I suppose is that authenticity is an important
    requirement for logs. If my log files say that my http server, dns
    server, mail server said "x", I want to know that message "x" really
    *did* come from the daemon in question, and not, for example, from a
    hacker / malicious user.
    
    How you would implement this, though......
    
    Dan
    
    
    
    
    On Tue, 2001-12-04 at 19:51, todd glassey wrote:
    > Except that on a production system there would be no real users, per se and
    > the logging data would be secured by operational setup.
    > 
    > BTW - I have a draft that will be submitted to the IETF on configuring a
    > baseline set of services to provide for a clean system. This is a BCP filing
    > and if adopted will allow auditors to say - set a system up as such and it
    > will likely be ok, all things considered.
    > 
    > Todd
    > 
    > ----- Original Message -----
    > From: "Dan Rowles" <daniel.rowlesat_private>
    > To: <loganalysisat_private>
    > Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2001 2:08 AM
    > Subject: Re: [logs] Due Diligence for Admission in Court
    > 
    > 
    > > Consider the simple perl script (attached). This will put an entry in to
    > > the logs that looks like user bob (or whoever you want) knows the root
    > > password.
    > >
    > > My apologies if I do not have the correct syslog facility and priorities
    > > - but this is for demo only :)
    > >
    > > The perl script attached can be run by any user (on a default RedHat-7.2
    > > install anyway). The ability for arbitary users to generate real-looking
    > > log entries should be enough to make the logs inadmissible in court.
    > >
    > > Dan
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > > #! /usr/bin/perl
    > >
    > > use Sys::Syslog qw(:DEFAULT setlogsock);
    > > use strict;
    > >
    > > setlogsock('unix')
    > >
    > > openlog('su(pam_unix)', 'cons,pid', 'auth');
    > > syslog('warning', 'session opened for user root');
    > > syslog('warning', 'session opened for user root by bob(uid=123)');
    > > closelog();
    > >
    > > exit;
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > >
    > > On Tue, 2001-12-04 at 02:34, Tina Bird wrote:
    > > > Pardon me for re-opening this can of worms.
    > > >
    > > > Did we ever come to a consensus, or a pseudo-consensus,
    > > > on due diligence for computer logs as evidentiary
    > > > quality data?
    > > >
    > > > What makes a judge unlikely to admit my logs as evidence?
    > > > - unauthenticated data sources ("anyone can write to this
    > > > datastream, therefore none of it is reliable")
    > > > - lack of time synchronization
    > > > - long term storage that is not tamper-proof
    > > > - no strategy for dealing with all the data once it's collected
    > > >
    > > > I would propose -- for your non-existent
    > > > Joe Average corporate network (I expect there to be
    > > > heated discussion - please tell me where I'm totally
    > > > off base) (and of course bearing in mind that this
    > > > isn't infallible, it's just as good as the "court" can
    > > > expect a "diligent" network or system administrator to
    > > > do):
    > > >
    > > > 1) can't enforce secure transmission protocols throughout
    > > > the network, because standards aren't sufficiently
    > > > evolved -- so standard syslog, SNMP, SMTP are okay for
    > > > transport protocols.  (although see #3 below)
    > > > 2) central loghost with NTP or other time synchronization
    > > > throughout the network -- use ongoing record of process
    > > > IDs on logging machines to verify reasonable expectation
    > > > that a particular log message came from a given machine
    > > > (does that make sense?  I know what I mean...)
    > > > 3) access control enforced at loghost that limits which
    > > > machines can log -- help reduce likelihood of spoofed
    > > > traffic -- or implement other transports altogether, like
    > > > the serial cable mechanism we've discussed
    > > > 4) loghost is of course totally locked down, SSH only
    > > > access, or console only access, and dumps logs to
    > > > write-once archive format on regular basis
    > > > 5) log review and reduction strategy -- anyone want to
    > > > take a stab?  since presumably part of showing that the
    > > > data is reliable is showing that I've thought about how
    > > > I should process it.
    > > > 6) minimum list of machines on that non-existent typical
    > > > network that I should be required to monitor to be
    > > > credible?
    > > >
    > > > Things have been awfully quiet out here lately...
    > > >
    > > > cheers -- tbird
    > > >
    > > > "I was being patient, but it took too long." -
    > > >                                 Anya, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
    > > >
    > > > Log Analysis: http://www.counterpane.com/log-analysis.html
    > > > VPN:  http://kubarb.phsx.ukans.edu/~tbird/vpn.html
    > > >
    > > >
    > > >
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    > >
    > >
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