Re:How Ethereum can be stolen through DNS rebinding
by cyphar on Sunday March 11, 2018 @09:15PM
(#16565609)
It should be noted that a desktop is not a single user machine, even though there may only be one human user operating the machine. A single user machine is a machine running in runlevel 1 -- in other words every process on the machine is running as one user and you cannot switch users.
Modern desktops do not run at runlevel 1. All sorts of services and daemons run under different users, so having an unauthenticated service listening on localhost is less secure even on a desktop machine. If you have network services running on a desktop machine (common) then a simple RCE in an unprivileged user (with respect to the human user) can result in wallet compromise. If the API was authenticated that would not be possible.
Unix DAC protects users from one another, so any service which exposes personal information outside of the currently running user has objectively inferior security to a security model invented in the 1960s.
Modern desktops do not run at runlevel 1. All sorts of services and daemons run under different users, so having an unauthenticated service listening on localhost is less secure even on a desktop machine. If you have network services running on a desktop machine (common) then a simple RCE in an unprivileged user (with respect to the human user) can result in wallet compromise. If the API was authenticated that would not be possible.
Unix DAC protects users from one another, so any service which exposes personal information outside of the currently running user has objectively inferior security to a security model invented in the 1960s.