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I think the fact that fake components regularly make their way into the supply chain should be more of a concern than the supermicro story. So, supply chain se

by new299 7y ago

I think the fact that fake components regularly make their way into the supply chain should be more of a concern than the supermicro story. So, supply chain security is poor, and getting backdoored parts into the supply chain is a realistic possibility. Bunnie has a good recent talk on this. https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5519 https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5519 The question in my mind, is is it worth the risk of detection. Particularly when other methods are less traceable, more easily deniable.

tyingq 7y ago
You don't even need fake chips. Many servers come with out of band remote management. Some of them even hijack the built-in Ethernet port. Even many Intel CPUs have it built in. You can get by with just a software hack. Bundling a reverse telnet or similar would likely be trivial if you had access to the manufacturer.
nyolfen 7y ago
bunnie himself says near the end of the presentation that he believes that something happened with supermicro but that the details were deliberately obfuscated by the usgov sources for the story
- new299 7y ago
  Well what bunnie says in that talk is that something may well have happened but it doesn’t pass Occam’s razor as presented in the Bloomberg article. Specifically he says that adding an IC to the board doesn’t make sense. And that embedding something in an existing package/device is possible. This is very different to what is described in the article being discussed here, and much more complex. The Bloomberg article seems largely inaccurate in any case. I don’t think it’s worth using as a motivation for any security work.
  - Enginerrrd 7y ago
    Yeah Occam's razor says your efforts would be much better spent on flashing custom firmware than a retrofit. That or a deliberate backdoor built into the chip from the ground up. Or something like this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_eSAF_qT_FY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_eSAF_qT_FY But a nearly magic rice-grain part with a microcontroller and networking?? You could make a fortune in IOT with something that capable.
mikorym 7y ago
Did you see the post recently about System 76's laptops that will soon have open source hardware drivers? Talking about fake items, fake items surely could have fake drivers, but even legitimate items could introduce fake (as in "unofficial") drivers. I think people are maybe naturally more paranoid of something that is "an intrusion". I think the unreasonable human element is when you perceive an intrusion that was not. As in: "They have hacked me look, my screen is blue!"

by new299 7y ago

tyingq 7y ago

You don't even need fake chips. Many servers come with out of band remote management. Some of them even hijack the built-in Ethernet port. Even many Intel CPUs have it built in. You can get by with just a software hack. Bundling a reverse telnet or similar would likely be trivial if you had access to the manufacturer.

nyolfen 7y ago

bunnie himself says near the end of the presentation that he believes that something happened with supermicro but that the details were deliberately obfuscated by the usgov sources for the story

new299 7y ago
Well what bunnie says in that talk is that something may well have happened but it doesn’t pass Occam’s razor as presented in the Bloomberg article. Specifically he says that adding an IC to the board doesn’t make sense. And that embedding something in an existing package/device is possible. This is very different to what is described in the article being discussed here, and much more complex. The Bloomberg article seems largely inaccurate in any case. I don’t think it’s worth using as a motivation for any security work.
- Enginerrrd 7y ago
  Yeah Occam's razor says your efforts would be much better spent on flashing custom firmware than a retrofit. That or a deliberate backdoor built into the chip from the ground up. Or something like this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_eSAF_qT_FY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_eSAF_qT_FY But a nearly magic rice-grain part with a microcontroller and networking?? You could make a fortune in IOT with something that capable.

mikorym 7y ago

Did you see the post recently about System 76's laptops that will soon have open source hardware drivers? Talking about fake items, fake items surely could have fake drivers, but even legitimate items could introduce fake (as in "unofficial") drivers. I think people are maybe naturally more paranoid of something that is "an intrusion". I think the unreasonable human element is when you perceive an intrusion that was not. As in: "They have hacked me look, my screen is blue!"