Comment by JCattheATM
1 day ago
> Apart from the fact that this is extremely rare,
So are bubblewrap escapes, which is the sandbox flatpak uses.
> the first vulnerability is not a complete escape.
It could potentially lead to one, and being able to obtain information from other VMs defeats much of the point of isolation, and so defeats much of the point of why people use qubes.
> For example, any offline vault VM storing secrets stayed secure. This is just not happening with any other security approach.
That's not true. Strong MAC would suffice, no VT-d needed.
> Speculative sidechannel attacks have nothing to do with OS or compartmentalization technology
Of course they do, in fact they have more to do with it than solutions like flatpak, which is why Qubes releases security advisories and patches to address those vulnerabilities.
>> Apart from the fact that this is extremely rare,
> So are bubblewrap escapes, which is the sandbox flatpak uses.
Not only they are much more frequent, including possibly kernel privilege escalations, not affecting Qubes, - the bubblewrap repository itself says that you have to be really careful to stay secure with it, even in the lack of vulnerabilities. Thus is not what people should seriously rely on. Again, my secrets in vault VM are safe since the intriduction of VT-d in ~2021. There is no comparably secure OS in the world.
I don't understand your unsubstantiated attack on Qubes.
> and being able to obtain information from other VMs defeats much of the point of isolation
It does not. Even if a VM becomes hostile and starts reading the RAM, it will not get any privileges in any other VM. Also, it can be easily cleaned. Also, you can just stop all VMs when performing a secure operation. Tell me how you protect yourself in such case with Flatpak.