Re: Identifying user-created objects - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

On 2020/03/04 19:14, Masahiko Sawada wrote:
> On Wed, 4 Mar 2020 at 18:57, Fujii Masao <masao.fujii@oss.nttdata.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2020/03/04 18:36, Masahiko Sawada wrote:
>>> On Wed, 4 Mar 2020 at 18:02, Fujii Masao <masao.fujii@oss.nttdata.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 2020/03/04 17:05, Masahiko Sawada wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 4 Mar 2020 at 16:43, Fujii Masao <masao.fujii@oss.nttdata.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 2020/02/05 20:26, Masahiko Sawada wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> User can create database objects such as functions into pg_catalog.
>>>>>>> But if I'm not missing something, currently there is no
>>>>>>> straightforward way to identify if the object is a user created object
>>>>>>> or a system object which is created during initdb. If we can do that
>>>>>>> user will be able to check if malicious functions are not created in
>>>>>>> the database, which is important from the security perspective.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The function that you are proposing is really enough for this use case?
>>>>>> What if malicious users directly change the oid of function
>>>>>> to < FirstNormalObjectId? Or you're assuming that malicious users will
>>>>>> never log in as superuser and not be able to change the oid?
>>>>>
>>>>> That's a good point! I'm surprised that user is allowed to update an
>>>>> oid of database object. In addition, surprisingly we can update it to
>>>>> 0, which in turn leads the assertion failure:
>>>>
>>>> Since non-superusers are not allowed to do that by default,
>>>> that's not so bad? That is, to avoid such unexpected change of oid,
>>>> admin just should prevent malicious users from logging in as superusers
>>>> and not give the permission on system catalogs to such users.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I think there is still insider threats. As long as we depend on
>>> superuser privilege to do some DBA work, a malicious DBA might be able
>>> to log in as superuser and modify oid.
>>
>> Yes. But I'm sure that DBA has already considered the measures
>> againt such threads. Otherwise malicious users can do anything
>> more malicious rather than changing oid.
> 
> Agreed. So that's not a serious problem in practice but we cannot say
> the checking by pg_is_user_object() is totally enough for checking
> whether malicious object exists or not. Is that right?

Yes.

My opinion is that, if malious users are not allowed to log in
as superusers and the admin give no permission on the system
schema/catalog to them, checking whether the object is defined
under pg_catalog schema or not is enough for your purpose.
Because they are also not allowed to create the object under
pg_catalog. pg_is_user_object() seems not necessary.

OTOH, if you address the case where malicious users can create
the object under pg_catalog, of course, checking whether
the object is defined under pg_catalog schema or not is enough
for the purpose. But pg_is_user_object() is also not enough
because such users can change oid.

Regards,

-- 
Fujii Masao
NTT DATA CORPORATION
Advanced Platform Technology Group
Research and Development Headquarters