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Days after being announced, Tenable reverse engineered the Intel AMT Vulnerability. According to a blog post, the vulnerability is a backdoor dream. The AMT web interface uses HTTP Digest Authentication, which uses MD5. The problem is that partial matches of the hash are also accepted. Therefore, Tenable decided to experiment and while doing so:
[W]e reduced the response hash to one hex digit and authentication still worked. Continuing to dig, we used a NULL/empty response hash (response="" in the HTTP Authorization header).
Authentication still worked. We had discovered a complete bypass of the authentication scheme.
Long story short, for over five years, a complete and trivial bypass of AMT authentication has existed. If this wasn't an intentional backdoor, it is a monumental mistake in security and coding best practices. Regardless, the "backdoor" is now public. With Shodan showing thousands of unpatchable computers (as no patch is currently available, assuming they would ever be patched) exposed to the Internet, some poor IT sod is bound to show up to work some bad news on Monday.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 07 2017, @11:39AM (2 children)
Some will assume this backdoor to be accidental. Then again - Intel built that chip that would identify itself online, every time it was connected to the internet. https://www.wired.com/1999/01/intel-on-privacy-whoops/ [wired.com]
For that and other reasons, I switched to AMD long ago, and have never looked back.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 07 2017, @01:26PM
AMD backdoor is better [reddit.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Wootery on Monday May 08 2017, @08:32AM
It's part of a broader trend of 'smart' devices. Smart (hackable) cars, smart (hackable) lightbulbs, and even smart (hackable) CPUs.