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Hanek Martin

2008-Apr-02 09:27 UTC

[R] Security issue

Hello,

I am trying to convince our IT Manager that R is as safe as possible from IT
security point of view - could you point me to something on the web / some
reasons for why this is true? I do not think he has a specific concern but does
not know the software and would like to understand the security implications.

Thanks in advance

Best Regards
Martin Hanek
Actuarial Analyst
Glacier Reinsurance AG
Churerstr. 78
CH-8808 Pfäffikon SZ
T +41 55 417 3431
F +41 55 417 3434
martin.hanek@glacierre.com
www.glacierre.com<http://www.glacierre.com/>

This e-mail, including any attachments, is for the inten...{{dropped:12}}

Prof Brian Ripley

2008-Apr-02 10:52 UTC

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[R] Security issue

Well, of course it isn't true -- no piece of software is 'as safe as 
possible'.  I think some IT managers would prefer not to run any OSes on 
their machines -- now, that is pretty safe (especially if they are then 
switched off to say energy).

You haven't told us your OS -- and that usually means it is Windows (or 
Mac OS). A reasonable question then is 'is R as safe than Windows'. 
However when you start R it says

 	R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.

so you are not going to get any warranty about this.  But it seems faintly 
ludicrous to ask if R is safe if you run an unsafe OS -- R is as safe as 
the system calls it uses (and any others you manage to run via exploits, 
although I am unaware of known exploits -- the few reports have been on 
at-the-time obsolete versions of R).  So just don't actually run R in an 
admnistrator account.

On Wed, 2 Apr 2008, Hanek Martin wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am trying to convince our IT Manager that R is as safe as possible 
> from IT security point of view - could you point me to something on the 
> web / some reasons for why this is true? I do not think he has a 
> specific concern but does not know the software and would like to 
> understand the security implications.
But surely that is his job!  Our Computing Manager certainly has it in his 
job description -- and he does allow R on our systems (owned by 
non-administrator accounts).
> Thanks in advance
>
> Best Regards
> Martin Hanek
> Actuarial Analyst
> Glacier Reinsurance AG
> Churerstr. 78
> CH-8808 Pf??fikon SZ
> T +41 55 417 3431
> F +41 55 417 3434
> martin.hanek at glacierre.com
> www.glacierre.com<http://www.glacierre.com/>
>
> This e-mail, including any attachments, is for the inten...{{dropped:12}}
>
>
-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595

Barry Rowlingson

2008-Apr-02 12:11 UTC

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[R] Security issue

Hanek Martin wrote:> Hello,
> 
> I am trying to convince our IT Manager that R is as safe as possible
> from IT security point of view - could you point me to something on
> the web / some reasons for why this is true? I do not think he has a
> specific concern but does not know the software and would like to
> understand the security implications.
> 
  To add to Brian's note that rightly says 'R can only do what a user 
can do anyway', I'll point out that R doesn't open any network ports
so
doesn't expose the machine that way. Unless of course you run a network 
server in R (is there a server package on CRAN?).

  I can think of crazy ways where R might be involved in an exploit - 
for example if the malicious party poisoned your DNS, then if you tried 
to install a package from CRAN, a fake DNS entry for cran.r-project.org 
would mean you instead got a package from a malicious party's web site, 
and hence you'd be running the wrong code. It would take a lot of work 
though - I suspect the intersection set of R programmers and black-hat 
hackers is pretty small. And if the hacker can poison the DNS 
effectively then there's plenty of easier exploits to do.

  And anyway, it's probably easier to get malicious R code by just 
announcing it on R-help. A message of "I've written this package to do 
XXYYZ" and a non-CRAN URL might get some people to bite. But the same 
applies to just about anything you download from the net - browser 
extensions, screen savers, add-on applications and so forth.

  R mitigates against this by having open source code for its core and 
CRAN add-on packages. Perhaps your IT Manager should only sanction the 
use of packages from CRAN? Although enforcing this wouldn't be easy.

  So yes, R is as safe as possible, for most values of 'safe' and 
'possible'.

Barry

Markus Gesmann

2008-Apr-02 12:37 UTC

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[R] Security issue

Hello Martin,

I can tell you from my experience that quite a few insurance companies in the
London Market use R.
If this is not enough, the following document might help you do find some good
arguments:
http://www.actuaries.org.uk/files/pdf/proceedings/giro2006/Maynard.pdf

Best regards,

Markus


Markus Gesmann ?Associate Director?Libero Ventures Ltd, One Broadgate, London
EC2M 2QS
tel: +44 (0)207 826 9080? dir: +44 (0)207 826 9085?fax: +44 (0)207 826 9090
?www.libero.uk.com

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-----Original Message-----
From: r-help-bounces at r-project.org [mailto:r-help-bounces at r-project.org]
On Behalf Of Hanek Martin
Sent: 02 April 2008 10:27
To: r-help at R-project.org
Subject: [R] Security issue

Hello,

I am trying to convince our IT Manager that R is as safe as possible from IT
security point of view - could you point me to something on the web / some
reasons for why this is true? I do not think he has a specific concern but does
not know the software and would like to understand the security implications.

Thanks in advance

Best Regards
Martin Hanek
Actuarial Analyst
Glacier Reinsurance AG
Churerstr. 78
CH-8808 Pf?ffikon SZ
T +41 55 417 3431
F +41 55 417 3434
martin.hanek at glacierre.com
www.glacierre.com<http://www.glacierre.com/>

This e-mail, including any attachments, is for the inten...{{dropped:12}}


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David Winsemius

2008-Apr-04 13:46 UTC

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[R] Security issue

Markus Gesmann <Markus.Gesmann at libero.uk.com> wrote in
news:5B78F43018FC3D488411E5F4903362E318EEE9E197 at OBG-EXC-01.OBG: 
> If this is not enough, the following document might help you do find
> some good arguments: http://www.actuaries.org.uk/files/pdf/proceedings/giro2006/Maynard.pdf 
 

That link is dead, ... perhaps one of:

http://www.actuaries.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/30136/Maynard.pdf

http://www.actuaries.org.uk/__data/assets/powerpoint_doc/0006/22578/Maynard.ppt

-- 
David Winsemius

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