[Cryptography] You can't trust any of your hardware

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Thu Jul 31 10:32:46 PDT 2014


On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 11:46 AM, Jerry Leichter <leichter at lrw.com> wrote:
> http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/07/this-thumbdrive-hacks-computers-badusb-exploit-makes-devices-turn-evil/
> The full talk/paper don't seem to be available yet, but they (a) figured out
> how to write malware that attacks a system via something plugged into its
> USB port (no, it doesn't depend on AUTORUN); (b) flipped that around and
> figured out how to replace the firmware on a USB device from the host.  I
> wouldn't have thought (b) was possible - after all, how many firmware
> updates for USB devices have you ever seen? - but I guess it's handy at the
> end of manufacturing, and gets left open because ... who would ever think of
> attacking it?
>
> On further reflection, though, I realized that the only thing new here is
> that they actually went and built a full-cycle virus.  All the rest was done
> a couple of years ago:  Apple published an update for its (USB) keyboards -
> http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4010 - and someone reverse-engineered it and
> figured out how to upload any code they liked -
> https://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-usa-09/CHEN/BHUSA09-Chen-RevAppleFirm-PAPER.pdf
>
> The fun never ends....

Just like BIOS/HDD firmware APT's, the updateability of firmware on USB
controllers is nothing new... even thumbdrives come with firmware 'deleted'
or fast formatted off their media, dd(1)... it just took a while to make it fun
for the entire family.

flashboot.ru
phison.com
usb mass production tool
BadUSB
BadBIOS
spritesmods.com hddhack



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