Qubes – Secure Desktop OS Using Security by Compartmentalization

[prohor]

There is a similar concept coming to Windows: http://www.bromium.com/innovations/micro-virtualization.html

[EvanAnderson]

There was a good presentation from the Chief Security Architect at Bromium from DerbyCon last year: http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=videos/derbycon3/4303-san...

He absolutely tears apart application sandboxes like "Sandboxie".

[csirac2]

From what I've been hearing they seem to already have big customers using it. I wonder if it'll ever be available to individuals and small businesses.

It's pretty cool in that it appears to have some tripwire-esque stuff so that you get useful logs when malware does try to do dodgy things in their sandbox. It sounds like it can alert the user with something like, "your browser might be compromised, start a new session" and everything is captured/saved so that admins can come back later to do forensics with the session that went bad.

[j_s]

Microsoft App-V has been around for 5+ years though it sounds like it would be a Docker to Bromium's Xen.

Sandboxie was one of the original Windows application virtualization options 10 years ago.

I was hoping something would become the 'Docker for Windows' but these programs are being snapped up by software security companies.

[bespoke_engnr]

I think I've seen this before, in a post somewhere by one of their developers. I think it was about how insecure X11 is, because any X11 app can listen for all keystrokes made by the user. AFAIK people jumped on that post as "it's a known property of X11, stop making drama about it."

[justincormack]

This article [1] is a good overview.

[1] http://www.invisiblethingslab.com/resources/2014/Software_co...

[phaer]

> The Qubes Windows Tools are proprietary but we distribute the binaries for free with current Qubes OS releases.

Out of curiosity: What's the reason for them being proprietary while the rest of the system seems to be free software?

[j_s]

Step 3: profit!

[nnnnni]

So... my question is: How does this work with things like games or other hardware-acceleration-intensive programs?

If there's no performance loss, great.

[smurfcity]

3D graphics are not supported. It is listed in the FAQ, found at https://wiki.qubes-os.org/wiki/UserFaq

[eeZi]

It doesn't: https://qubes-os.org/wiki/UserFaq

[michaelmior]

This would perhaps be doable with something like VMGL[0].

[0] http://sysweb.cs.toronto.edu/vmgl

[niutech]

Isn't it the same as Sandboxie? http://www.sandboxie.com/

[anth1y]

Qubes is an Xen-based Operating System while Sandboxie is an application for Windows.

[lawnchair_larry]

They are not at all similar.

[leonxy]

:) btw if you're looking for virtualization of apps (not security), Cameyo is great.

[mrottenkolber]

While I am all for virtualizing, it doesn't help security. It just moves the exploit from your OS into your hypervisor. Even worse, you add a whole new level of exploitable code.

[spindritf]

Of course it improves security. On Qubes, someone who can exploit your browser (pdf reader, word processor) doesn't automatically get free rein on your machine. They still need to escape Xen.

[vidarh]

That's nonsense. It doesn't automatically help security.

But compartmentalization does mean that barring a hypervisor exploit, each exploit can potentially be prevented from affecting more than a small part of the system.

I care a whole lot less if Chrome is exploited if it can't access my ssh keys, for example (not that I wouldn't still care, but the potential damage would be limited).

[timmclean]

This document[1] talks about that risk and what they've done to mitigate it at the bottom of page 10.

[1] http://www.invisiblethingslab.com/resources/2014/Software_co...

[na85]

I take it you've not heard of the phrase "defensive depth".