| 1 | <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE topic PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
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| 3 | <topic xml:lang="en-us" id="pot-insecure">
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| 4 | <title>Potentially Insecure Operations</title>
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| 5 |
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| 6 | <body>
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| 7 | <p>
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| 8 | The following features of <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> can present security
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| 9 | problems:
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| 10 | </p>
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| 11 | <ul>
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| 12 | <li>
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| 13 | <p>
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| 14 | When teleporting a machine, the data stream through which
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| 15 | the machine's memory contents are transferred from one host
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| 16 | to another is not encrypted. A third party with access to
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| 17 | the network through which the data is transferred could
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| 18 | therefore intercept that data. An SSH tunnel could be used
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| 19 | to secure the connection between the two hosts. But when
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| 20 | considering teleporting a VM over an untrusted network the
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| 21 | first question to answer is how both VMs can securely access
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| 22 | the same virtual disk image with a reasonable performance.
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| 23 | </p>
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| 24 | <p>
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| 25 | If the network is not sufficiently trusted, the password
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| 26 | should be changed for each teleportation as a third party
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| 27 | could detect the unecrypted password hash when it is
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| 28 | transferred between the target and source host machines.
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| 29 | </p>
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| 30 | </li>
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| 31 | <li>
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| 32 | <p>
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| 33 | When <xref href="guestadd-pagefusion.dita">Page Fusion</xref>,
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| 34 | is enabled, it is possible that a side-channel opens up that
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| 35 | enables a malicious guest to determine the address space of
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| 36 | another VM running on the same host layout. For example,
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| 37 | where DLLs are typically loaded. This information leak in
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| 38 | itself is harmless, however the malicious guest may use it
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| 39 | to optimize attack against that VM through unrelated attack
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| 40 | vectors. It is recommended to only enable Page Fusion if you
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| 41 | do not think this is a concern in your setup.
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| 42 | </p>
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| 43 | </li>
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| 44 | <li>
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| 45 | <p>
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| 46 | When using the <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> web service to control an
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| 47 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> host remotely, connections to the web
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| 48 | service, over which the API calls are transferred using SOAP
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| 49 | XML, are not encrypted. They use plain HTTP by default. This
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| 50 | is a potential security risk. For details about the web
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| 51 | service, see <xref href="VirtualBoxAPI.dita#VirtualBoxAPI"/>.
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| 52 | </p>
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| 53 | <p>
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| 54 | The web services are not started by default. See
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| 55 | <xref href="vboxwebsrv-daemon.dita#vboxwebsrv-daemon"/> to find out how to start
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| 56 | this service and how to enable SSL/TLS support. It has to be
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| 57 | started as a regular user and only the VMs of that user can
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| 58 | be controlled. By default, the service binds to localhost
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| 59 | preventing any remote connection.
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| 60 | </p>
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| 61 | </li>
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| 62 | <li>
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| 63 | <p>
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| 64 | Traffic sent over a UDP Tunnel network attachment is not
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| 65 | encrypted. You can either encrypt it on the host network
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| 66 | level, with IPsec, or use encrypted protocols in the guest
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| 67 | network, such as SSH. The security properties are similar to
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| 68 | bridged Ethernet.
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| 69 | </p>
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| 70 | </li>
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| 71 | <li>
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| 72 | <p>
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| 73 | Because of shortcomings in older Windows versions, using
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| 74 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> on Windows versions older than Vista with
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| 75 | Service Pack 1 is not recommended.
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| 76 | </p>
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| 77 | </li>
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| 78 | </ul>
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| 79 | </body>
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| 80 |
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| 81 | </topic>
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