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from the false-flag-to-justify-forced-secureboot dept.
The company ESET, based in Slovakia, has announced finding the first-ever UEFI rootkit in the wild. Once infected with the malware the only option is to reflash the SPI firmware or else replace the whole motherboard.
First spotted in early 2017, LoJax is a trojaned version of a popular legitimate LoJack laptop anti-theft software from Absolute Software, which installs its agent into the system's BIOS to survive OS re-installation or drive replacement and notifies device owner of its location in case the laptop gets stolen.
According to researchers, the hackers slightly modified the LoJack software to gain its ability to overwrite UEFI module and changed the background process that communicates with Absolute Software's server to report to Fancy Bear's C&C servers.
UEFI is an overly complex replacement for BIOS, and is often conflated with one of its payloads, Restricted Boot aka Secure Boot.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jasassin on Friday September 28 2018, @10:15PM (5 children)
The only thing I can think of would be a PC with two network cards to create a firewall and sniff the packets. Your UEFI would still be hacked, but at least you'd know. I guess you could filter the packets to the C&C. This is an insidious trojan, that as you said could be a lot worse. :(
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday September 29 2018, @01:17AM (4 children)
Geez... Put a jumper on the motherboard.
I protect my hobbyist boards that way, so that the board won't be accidentally reprogrammed.
I understand the dilemma. I used to work around business types, and they weren't too keen on stuff like this.
There's big money to be made by selling stuff thats already compromised before the customer even sees it.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Saturday September 29 2018, @01:55AM
I know if I tried that I'd have one dead motherboard! (Props to you though.)
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 3, Touché) by Revek on Saturday September 29 2018, @03:05AM (1 child)
I know right. A jumper or switch to prevent writes to the flash. Crazy right. It would work but its crazy and all management drones know if it sounds crazy and works its not worth doing.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 29 2018, @03:52AM
A switch or jumper? Are you insane, that will add an entire one-tenth of a cent to the BoM. How can the CEOs of the computer manufacturers afford another yacht each with a huge slice like that to their profit margin?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 29 2018, @11:52AM
A motherboard I had years ago had two jumpers. One to prevent flashing, and the other to force loading the flash from backup.
Why isn't this a standard? Because another chip on the board with a backup copy of the original flash is too expensive?