4 ms·
In theory, does a backdoored firmware run slower? If yes, then can you detect a backdoor by building one yourself and benchmarking? Or are the margins of error
by ikeboy 11y ago
In theory, does a backdoored firmware run slower? If yes, then can you detect a backdoor by building one yourself and benchmarking?
Or are the margins of error on repeated benchmarks larger than any performance hit due to a backdoor, or can something be backdoored without any performance hit?
What about power consumption?
- strooper 11y agoPractically, backdoored firmware doesn't necessarily run services and communicates to the mothership all the time, nor does it communicate using conventional protocols. It creates invisible hole in the system beyond OS's reach to detect and repair it. Furthermore, the hardware (or chip based) backdoor is way more sophisticated, typically have been in use in the servers of foreign governments of interest. This chips can be used to take full control of a server, and the whole network when places strategically. In another note, hard RTOS are not used in servers, so performance cannot be compared with benchmarking tools.
- IncRnd 11y ago>> In another note, hard RTOS are not used in servers, so performance cannot be compared with benchmarking tools. It may seem surprising, but performance is easily determined by side channel attacks. https://www.google.com/search?q=blackhat+side+channel+web+timing https://www.google.com/search?q=blackhat+side+channel+web+ti...
- rdancer 11y agoIt runs at hardware speeds, and only some of the time, so not really. You can perform timing attacks, and see if you're running under a modified hypervisor, for example. But if you have a sniffer chip on the PCI bus or Northbridge, you won't be able to see it. Power consumption has been done as well, but you really need to know what it is you're looking for, and if it is just dormant for most of the time, how are you going to test for that?