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Wait, copilot operates as some privileged user (that can bypass audit?), not as you (or better, you with some restrictions) That can’t be right, can it?
by lokar 1y ago
Wait, copilot operates as some privileged user (that can bypass audit?), not as you (or better, you with some restrictions)
That can’t be right, can it?
- ceejayoz 1y ago> That can’t be right, can it? https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/james-franco-first-time https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/james-franco-first-time
- lokar 1y agolol. I’ve avoided MS my entire (30+ year) career. Every now and then I’m reminded I made the right choice.
- trinsic2 1y agoI woke up to MS in 2023[0]. Never again. [0]: https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/publication-transition-windows-to-linux/ https://www.scottrlarson.com/publications/publication-transi...
- tomrod 1y agoBrilliant.
- dhosek 1y agoThat was a laugh-out-loud moment in that film.
- tomrod 1y agoSure sounds like, for Microsoft, an audit log is optional when it comes to cramming garbage AI integrations in places they don't belong.
- Spooky23 1y agoNo, it accesses data with the users privilege.
- gpm 1y agoAre you telling me I, a normal unprivileged user, have a way to read files on windows that bypasses audit logs?
- swiftcoder 1y agoIf someone (Copilot, in this case) has built a search index that covers all the files on your computer, and left it accessible to your user account... yes
- lokar 1y agoI'm guessing they are making an implicit distinction between access as the user, vs with the privs of the user. In the second case, the process has permission to do whatever it wants, it elects to restrain itself. Which is obviously subject to many more bugs then the first approach.
- Spooky23 1y agoIf there is a product defect? Sure. The dude found the bug, reported the bug, they fixed the bug. This isn’t uncommon, there bugs like this frequently in complex software.
- gpm 1y agoI think you just defined away the entire category of vulnerability known as "privilege escalation".
- jjkaczor 1y agoSo... basically like when Delve was first introduced and was improperly security trimming things it was suggesting and search results. ... Or ... a very long-time ago, when SharePoint search would display results and synopsis's for search terms where a user couldn't open the document, but could see that it existed and could get a matching paragraph or two... Best example I would tell people of the problem was users searching for things like: "Fall 2025 layoffs"... if the document existed, then things were being planned... Ah Microsoft, security-last is still the thing, eh?
- ocdtrekkie 1y agoI would say "insecure by default". I talked to some Microsoft folks around the Windows Server 2025 launch, where they claimed they would be breaking more compatibility in the name of their Secure Future Initiative. But Server 2025 will load malicious ads on the Edge start screen[1] if you need to access a web interface of an internal thing from your domain controller, and they gleefully announced including winget, a wondeful malware delivery tool with zero vetting or accountability in Server 2025. Their response to both points was I could disable those if I wanted to. Which I can, but was definitely not the point. You can make a secure environment based on Microsoft technologies, but it will fight you every step of the way. [1] As a fun fact, this actually makes Internet Explorer a drastically safer browser than Edge on servers! By default, IE's ESC mode on servers basically refused to load any outside websites.
- beart 1y agoI've always felt that Microsoft's biggest problem is the way it manages all of the different teams, departments, features, etc. They are completely disconnected and have competing KPIs. I imagine the edge advertising team has a goal to make so much revenue, and the security team has a goal to reduce CVEs, but never the twain shall meet. Also you probably have to go up 10 levels of management before you reach a common person.
- VitalKoshalew 1y agoServers don't have Desktop GUI, so there is no way you can run a browser on a real server installation. That's done specifically to limit the attack surface. This applies to almost all Windows Server roles except very few such as ADFS which Microsoft is struggling to migrate for decades. Definitely to the root of all security - AD DC. If you've elected to create a Frankenstein of a domain controller and a desktop/gaming PC and are using it to browse any websites, all consequences are entirely on you.
- catmanjan 1y agoAs someone else mentioned the file isnt actually accessed by copilot, rather copilot is reading the pre-indexed contents of the file in a search engine... Really Microsoft should be auditing the search that copilot executes, its actually a bit misleading to be auditing the file as accessed when copilot has only read the indexed content of the file, I don't say I've visited a website when I've found a result of it in Google
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- internetter 1y ago> I don't say I've visited a website when I've found a result of it in Google I mean, it depends on how large the index window is, because if google returned the entire webpage content without leaving (amp moment), you did visit the website. fine line.
- bw86 1y agoThe challenge then is to differentiate between "I wanted to access the secret website/document" and "Google/Copilot gave me the secret website/document, but it was not my intention to access that".
- swiftcoder 1y agoAccess is access. Regardless of whether you intended to view the document, you are now aware of its content in either case, and an audit entry must be logged.
- ceridwyn 1y agoStrongly agree. Consider the case of a healthcare application where, during the course of business, staff may perform searches for patients by name. When "Ada Lovelace" appears even briefly in the search results of a "search-as-you-type" for some "Adam _lastname", has their privacy has been compromised? I think so, and the audit log should reflect that. I'm a fan of FHIR (a healthcare api standard, but far from widely adopted), and they have a secondary set of definitions for Audit log patterns (BALP) that recommends this kind of behaviour. https://profiles.ihe.net/ITI/BALP/StructureDefinition-IHE.BasicAudit.PatientQuery.html https://profiles.ihe.net/ITI/BALP/StructureDefinition-IHE.Ba... "[Given a query for patients,] When multiple patient results are returned, one AuditEvent is created for every Patient identified in the resulting search set. Note this is true when the search set bundle includes any number of resources that collectively reference multiple Patients."
- faangguyindia 1y agoI've disabled copilot i don't even find it useful. I think most people who use copilot have not see "better".
- neutronicus 1y agoDo you mean the code completions or the agentic chat interface? The latter is at least sort of usable for me, while the former is an active hindrance in the sense that it delays the appearance of much-more-useful Intellisense completions. Having said that, even the agentic chat is not really a win for me at work. It lacks ... something that it needs in order to work on our large C++ codebase. Maybe it needs fine-tuning? Maybe it just needs tools that only pull in relevant bits of context (something like the Visual Studio "peek definition" so that it doesn't context-rot itself with 40 thousand lines of C++)? IDK. For personal projects Claude Code is really good at the C++ type system, although inclined to bail before actually completing the task it's given. So I feel like there's potential here. But as you say, stock Copilot is Not It.
- ValveFan6969 1y agoI can only assume that Microsoft/OpenAI have some sort of backdoor privileges that allows them to view our messages, or at least analyze and process them. I wouldn't be surprised.
- Hilift 1y agoIn Windows, if a process has Backup privilege it can bypass any permissions, and it is not audited by default due to it would create too much audit volume by actual backup applications. Any process that has this privilege can use it, but the privilege is disabled by default, so it would require deliberate enablement. It is fairly easy to enable in managed code like C#. Same goes for Restore privilege.
- 9dev 1y agoNo need to go that far if any random app can read your entire user directory and everyone just accepts elevation prompts without reading them.
- fc417fc802 1y ago... and? In an audited environment you'd carefully vet how the backups work. That functionality is inside the security boundary so to speak. I don't believe it's integrated with (any bypass of) auditing but the same "ignore permissions" capability exists on Linux as CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH and is primarily useful for the same sort of tasks.
- eleveriven 1y agoIt's not necessarily that Copilot has superuser access, it's more like the audit system isn't wired tightly enough to catch all the ways Copilot can retrieve data
- michael1999 1y agoHave you met Microsoft? This is the organization that pushed code-signing as their security posture for a decade.
- zo1 1y agoJudging by what I've been seeing in the field in the last half-decade, this doesn't surprise me one bit. Zero forward thinking and comprehensive analysis of features before they are built, with tickets just being churned out by incessant meetings that only end because people get tired. And the devs just finish the tickets without ever asking why a feature is being built or how it actually has to interact with the rest of the system. Multiply that by years, by changing project managers and endless UX re-writes, huge push for DEI over merit, junior & outsourced-heavy hires and forced promotions, and you end up getting this mess that is "technically" working and correct but no one can quantify the potential loss and lack of real progress that could have been made if actual competent individuals were put in charge.