James Morris, maintainer of the Linux kernel security subsystem and head of the "Linux Emerging Technologies" team at Microsoft, presented the Litebox project, positioned as a security-focused operating system in the form of a Library OS. Litebox can be used in programs or kernels as an additional layer of isolation, blocking access to excessive functionality of kernels or APIs to reduce the attack surface. The project code is written in Rust and is open under the MIT license.
The idea of a "Library OS" is that operating system services are directly embedded into the application instead of calling the external OS kernel through system calls. In the context of Litebox, an isolating layer is connected to applications, providing a minimal platform that translates requests to an external fully functional programming interface. Such external interfaces may include the Linux kernel, secured isolated environments like OP-TEE (Open Portable Trusted Execution Environment), WebAssembly environments, or the standard RustStd library.
The minimal platform formed through Litebox is applicable for running applications on Linux, Windows, and FreeBSD, nested Linux kernels, and LVBS (Linux Virtualization Based Security). Possible use cases for Litebox include enabling unmodified Linux programs to run on Windows, isolating the execution of Linux applications on systems with a Linux kernel, running programs above AMD SEV SNP for memory encryption, executing OP-TEE programs in Linux, and isolation using the LVBS concept.
The LVBS project, whose representatives are involved in the development of Litebox, is developing methods to protect components of the Linux kernel, utilizing the capabilities of hypervisors and hardware virtualization. For example, with the help of a hypervisor, operations for authenticating modules, verification, and access control to passwords, keys, kernel structures, and other critically important resources can be isolated. In case of an exploitation of a vulnerability and compromise of the kernel, an attacker will not be able to access such resources since their handlers run outside the current privilege level. Litebox is considered within the context of the LVBS project as a "secure kernel", protecting the standard kernel of the guest system through hardware virtualization.
Zdroj: opennet.ru
