Netflix Uncovers TCP Bugs Within The Linux & FreeBSD Kernels

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Netflix Uncovers TCP Bugs Within The Linux & FreeBSD Kernels

As Netflix's first security bulletin for 2019, they warned of TCP-based remote denial of service vulnerabilities affecting both Linux and FreeBSD. These vulnerabilities are rated "critical" but already being corrected within the latest Git code...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Netflix-TCP-BSD-Linux-Bugs

[rene]

this news is a bit latish, ..! ;-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8akg0mPyflw

[birdie]

A few minutes after the announcement my PC was already running 5.1.11. Too bad it's gonna take quite some time before OpenWRT updates their images. They haven't even applied the patches yet

As a workaround you can run

sysctl net.ipv4.tcp_sack=0

[Volta]

So they're being fixed in Linux. What about FreeBSD? Shouldn't Netflix fix it in the first place?

[birdie]

So they're being fixed in Linux. What about FreeBSD? Shouldn't Netflix fix it in the first place?

Default FreeBSD is not even affected.

[aht0]

https://github.com/Netflix/security-...it_limit.patch
Netflix's provided patch for FreeBSD (12)

[yossarianuk]

A few minutes after the announcement my PC was already running 5.1.11. Too bad it's gonna take quite some time before OpenWRT updates their images. They haven't even applied the patches yet

As a workaround you can run

sysctl net.ipv4.tcp_sack=0

My understanding is this can slow down TCP connections - you are better off using the iptables rule

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcpmss --mss 1:500 -j DROP

Suse's advisory suggests this -> https://www.suse.com/support/kb/doc/?id=7023928

[Azrael5]

Linux Os has to improve in security and efficiency.

[jukk]

iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -m tcpmss --mss 1:500 -j DROP

It is much preferred to use "iptables -I INPUT" instead of "iptables -A INPUT". Depending on rules in your chain, -A could possibly cause much cpu load if the rule is heavily processed.

At HN it is suggested to use "-t raw -I PREROUTING", which could be of benefit especially with heavy traffic.

[Wojcian]

Linux Os has to improve in security and efficiency.

Like any other OS. However, Linux beats commercial OS'es by a large margin. Windows and OS X are far behind when comes to audit.