On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 6:00 PM, Larry Sheldon <LarrySheldon@cox.net> wrote:
Is the heartbleed bug not proof positive that it is not being done today?
On the contrary. Heartbleed is "proof" that memory IS cleared before being assigned to a *process*. The data available via the vulnerability is limited to data from the process itself, not from any other process on the system. ie, Heartbleed can give up your SSL keys, but not your /etc/shadow file. If memory wasn't cleared before being allocated to a process, every multi-user systems would be vulnerable to Heartbleed-style vulnerability - just allocate some memory, and go reading. Eventually you'd get something containing /etc/shadow or other data you shouldn't be seeing. Within a process (ie, memory being re-allocated to the same process) there are ways to achieve the same thing, however as there's generally no security reasons for doing so, and as there is a non-trivial overhead, it's not done by default. Scott