Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Wednesday August 12 2015, @02:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the things-aren't-getting-better dept.

With their own dedicated processor and operating system, LTE/3G modems built into new business laptops and tablets could be a valuable target for hackers by providing a stealthy way to maintain persistent access to an infected device.

In a presentation Saturday at the DEF CON security conference in Las Vegas, researchers Mickey Shkatov and Jesse Michael from Intel's security group demonstrated how a malware program installed on a computer could rewrite the firmware of a popular Huawei LTE modem module that's included in many devices.

The module runs a Linux-based OS, more specifically a modification of Android, that is completely independent from the computer's main operating system. It's connected to the computer through an internal USB interface, which means that it could be instructed to emulate a keyboard, mouse, CD-ROM drive, network card, or other USB device. Those would appear connected to the primary OS.

The main problem found by the Intel researchers was that the update process for the modem's firmware was insecure, lacking a cryptographic signature verification. This allowed them to create a malicious firmware image that could be written through the Windows update utility provided by the vendor.

The malicious firmware could be flashed by a malicious program that already runs on the computer, or by users themselves if an attacker tricks them into thinking that a new update is available.

If successful, the attack would provide a way to reinfect the main OS even if it is reinstalled. Moreover, the rogue firmware could be modified to ignore any subsequent firmware update requests, leaving the user with no option to recover from such a compromise, except for taking his laptop or tablet apart and pulling out the infected modem module.

Huawei has addressed the issue and the module now performs a secure boot, preventing the use of unauthorized firmware images, the researchers said, adding that the company has been very responsive and great to work with.

There is a platform risk with these modems and other components that provide independent execution environments where malware can survive OS wiping and which are not visible to antivirus and other security programs. That's why secure software updates are really important, the researchers said.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by WizardFusion on Wednesday August 12 2015, @03:03PM

    by WizardFusion (498) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 12 2015, @03:03PM (#221710) Journal

    Can these be disabled in the systems BIOS.? At what point does this module get activated when power is applied.?

           

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by MrNemesis on Wednesday August 12 2015, @03:11PM

    by MrNemesis (1582) on Wednesday August 12 2015, @03:11PM (#221714)

    As another story in the submission queue points out, you can do the same thing in the BIOS (actually UEFI) as well; someone's caught Lenovo using some not-very-well-documented features of UEFI to write to disk and then run an arbitrary .exe on your nice clean windows install on every boot:

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10039306 [ycombinator.com]

    Original scoop from Ars:
    http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29497693&sid=ddf3e32512932172454de515091db014#p29497693 [arstechnica.com]

    At the moment it writes out a service which, when it finds an internet connection, sends off some info to Lenovo and then installs $possibly_useful_gubbins. But in doing so behaves exactly like a rootkit.

    That said, this attack vector - hiding an executable in some NAND somewhere and then spamming it onto persistent storage - is hardly a new thing, but I don't see how you can protect yourself from your own hardware very easily... via the windows method listed above, even using FDE like truecrypt won't help you.

    --
    "To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @04:37PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @04:37PM (#221751)

      Here's another gem, if you want to do it yourself. Roll rootkits like a state level actor.

      https://www.blackhat.com/html/bh-us-12/bh-us-12-archives.html#Brossard [blackhat.com] (Rakshasa)

      This is all public knowledge. Imagine what the secret sauce must be like.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @01:05AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @01:05AM (#222042)

      truecrypt won't help you
      Encryption hides a message. It does not hide that you sent one. Also it only slows people down long enough for the message information to become useless. It does not 'protect' you.

      Treat it like that.