this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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I understand Signal's stance on this. For this vulnerability, the attacker needs physical access to computer. If the attacker has already gained physical access, the attacker can already access your messages, crypto wallets, password managers.
Many password managers also have this flaw. For example, Someone can change Keepass master password if the user is already logged in to the session, if they have physical access to the PC and lock you out of all your accounts.
They don’t need physical access (hold the device in their hand), they just need a command execution, which is a much lower bar. I expect some defence in depth for an application that holds some of the most private information there is about me.
The argument still holds. If they have remote execution access, they already have your data. Encryption can't protect your data here because encrypted data will automatically become unencrypted once the user logs into the computer. If the attacker has remote access they can log into your account and the data will be unencrypted.
They don't necessarily need RCE access.
Also this isn't how security works. Please refer to the Swiss cheese model.
Unless you can guarantee that every application ever installed on every computer will always be secure under every circumstances then you're already breaking your security model.
An application may expose a vulnerable web server which may allow read only file system access without exposing the user to any direct control of their computer from an attacker. Now your lack of security posture for your application (signal) now has a shared fate to any other application anyone else built.
This is just one of many easy examples that are counter to your argument here.
Exactly. They just need to be able to send a file somewhere, and there are other attacks where they can do what w/o code execution.