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The best ThinkPads - which are used in many corporations - use Intel's vPro technology. Intel is offering those corporations to "remotely wipe the hard disk - e

by pulse7 6y ago

The best ThinkPads - which are used in many corporations - use Intel's vPro technology. Intel is offering those corporations to "remotely wipe the hard disk - even if laptop is turned off and not connected to the internet - in case the laptop is stolen". This technology requires presence of WLAN and SIM card. So it bypasses the corporate IT completely...

eeZah7Ux 6y ago
This comparison is absurd. A minority of laptops are thinkpads, a fraction of those have SIM cards, and, finally, attacking that subsystem requires serious skills and the benefits are dubious. Compare that with android/ios phones, which 99% of people have, and have a large underground market of backdoors that anybody can buy and install. Not to mention all the spyware that users and OEM install.
- wolco2 6y ago
  It's the difference between finding an expliot for gmail vs finding one for a small discord server. Your attack on gmail has a bigger universe of targets if successful.
  - eeZah7Ux 6y ago
    Yes, and that's why NSA successfully intercepted google's fiber optic cables and so on.
  - nottorp 6y ago
    Uh, discord is a centralized service. You find an exploit for a "small discord server" you can probably use it on all servers.
kube-system 6y ago
The concern is not literally who owns the network, but whether or not the organization can effectively manage the traffic. There are secure ways to manage that setup, as opposed to, a personal phone where the organization has zero control.
everdrive 6y ago
This is not equivalent, though. Here are some questions I don't have the answer to, but would be relevant: - Are these SIMs always active? - Do they communicate broadly with the internet, or just specific servers? - If they communicate with specific servers, where does an attacker have to be exploit these communications? - Does this technology allow for the arbitrary execution of code, or can it only wipe the hard drive? There are probably more contraints here, but the basic point I'm driving at is that the challenge here is not equivalent to the challenge of exploiting an old android or iOS device. Is there some risk, yes, but it really doesn't seem to be the same amount of risk.

by pulse7 6y ago

eeZah7Ux 6y ago

This comparison is absurd. A minority of laptops are thinkpads, a fraction of those have SIM cards, and, finally, attacking that subsystem requires serious skills and the benefits are dubious. Compare that with android/ios phones, which 99% of people have, and have a large underground market of backdoors that anybody can buy and install. Not to mention all the spyware that users and OEM install.

wolco2 6y ago
It's the difference between finding an expliot for gmail vs finding one for a small discord server. Your attack on gmail has a bigger universe of targets if successful.
- eeZah7Ux 6y ago
  Yes, and that's why NSA successfully intercepted google's fiber optic cables and so on.
- nottorp 6y ago
  Uh, discord is a centralized service. You find an exploit for a "small discord server" you can probably use it on all servers.

kube-system 6y ago

The concern is not literally who owns the network, but whether or not the organization can effectively manage the traffic. There are secure ways to manage that setup, as opposed to, a personal phone where the organization has zero control.

everdrive 6y ago

This is not equivalent, though. Here are some questions I don't have the answer to, but would be relevant: - Are these SIMs always active? - Do they communicate broadly with the internet, or just specific servers? - If they communicate with specific servers, where does an attacker have to be exploit these communications? - Does this technology allow for the arbitrary execution of code, or can it only wipe the hard drive? There are probably more contraints here, but the basic point I'm driving at is that the challenge here is not equivalent to the challenge of exploiting an old android or iOS device. Is there some risk, yes, but it really doesn't seem to be the same amount of risk.