Logging to the Danger Zone: Race Condition Attacks and Defenses on System Audit Frameworks

Abstract

For system logs to aid in security investigations, they must be beyond the reach of the adversary. Unfortunately, attackers that have escalated privilege on a host are typically able to delete and modify log events at will. In response to this threat, a variety of secure logging systems have appeared over the years that attempt to provide tamper-resistance (e.g., write once read many drives, remote storage servers) or tamper-evidence (e.g., cryptographic proofs) for system logs. These solutions expose an interface through which events are committed to a secure log, at which point they enjoy protection from future tampering. However, all proposals to date have relied on the assumption that an event's occurrence is concomitant with its commitment to the secured log.