6 ms·

Honestly, I think that's unlikely. This is far too sloppy to have been intentional. There are much better ways to implement a backdoor when you control the OS i

by kentonv 12y ago

Honestly, I think that's unlikely. This is far too sloppy to have been intentional. There are much better ways to implement a backdoor when you control the OS image. This is just incompetence, plain and simple. Superfish looks like the kind of crapware that pays OEMs to include it in their bundle. Lenovo took the cash and didn't bother to review the code. Superfish, for its part, probably doesn't have the best and brightest engineers working for them. They probably tasked a junior programmer with working around SSL, who then committed the first solution that worked without ever thinking about security implications, and they shipped it.

WestCoastJustin 12y ago
Cannot see how this could possibly be true. Having been privy to OS bundling for products, I can assure you there is lengthy contracts, and negotiations, about exactly what is happening. You do no simply walk up to Lenovo and have your "software" installed into the OS without a very detailed contract and pay structure. There also looks to be js injected into pages, which is serving up the ads, and a comment about Lenovo [1]. Think about what the means. There was a project at this company, where they had meetings, project plans, testing to make sure it worked, and a very detailed idea of what was going on. Never mind all the ramping up capacity due to new Lenovo's boxes coming on-line. There is zero chance this was some low level junior programmer fly by night operation. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9072542 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9072542
- kentonv 12y ago
  Oh I'm sure they had lots of meetings about the contracts and pay structure, and they may have done testing to make sure it didn't break things, but apparently no one did a security review. Sadly, this doesn't surprise me that much. If they did know about the problem, they could have fixed it. If the app simply generated a new key as part of first-time use, then it would just be run-of-the-mill crapware rather than a gaping security hole. Even if Lenovo has malicious intent, it would still have been in their best interests to do at least that, yet they didn't. Hence I assume it was incompetence.
  - moe 12y ago
    but apparently no one did a security review It doesn't take a "security review" to spot a gaping security and privacy violation like this. Any engineer with even the slightest clue of how a browser and "the internet" works would have called this out during the first "How does this product work?"-presentation. Let's not pretend Lenovo is staffed with monkeys.
    - e12e 12y ago
      “Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.” Remember stuff like this: http://www.cryptofails.com/post/70059600123/saltstack-rsa-e-d-1 http://www.cryptofails.com/post/70059600123/saltstack-rsa-e-... (Which, possibly unfairly, is one reason I'm leaning more towards ansible than saltstack to this day -- I mean, if stuff like that got through... what else, in more complex areas of the system?)
      - freehunter 12y ago
        The problem in Lenovo's situation is, calling it incompetence is the real stretch. You could call Charles Manson incompetent saying he just didn't know what he was doing was wrong, but everyone knows he was just evil. Never falsely attribute to incompetence what is actually ascribable to malice. You can't come in here with a straight face and say that no one at Lenovo considered the security risk of including this software. If it was considered and they pushed ahead with it anyway, that's malice.
        e12e 12y ago
        I don't think anyone there thought/realized that they were including a backdoor usable by any number of third parties (by virtue of installing a mitm-cert, and giving away the key). And this case is much worse than any other crapware-by-way-of-oem than I've heard of. But given the amount of nasty stuff most vendors seem to install on systems -- it appears to me that no one really looks at what is installed, or gives much thought to the consequences. It's negligent, and in this case probably criminally so -- and that might constitute "an evil" -- but I don't think this is the result of someone's overt intentional evil act. I don't think anyone actually did consider the security risk of this particular piece of software. Maybe I'm naive, but if nothing else, the risk of lawsuits/backlash seems too great in this case. I don't like ads and bloatware, but I think calling them "evil" is diluting what "evil" means. I might be wrong, of course. But I don't think any of the big OEMs does any real review of the crap that is installed on computers -- and I think forgetting to generate an unique cert/key on post-install/first run is an error -- not intentional. Deciding to install this kind of crap strikes me as a very poor decision -- but I'm still not sure I'd consider it evil. Evil would be using the Intel management co-prosessor to do something similar -- presumably then a clean install wouldn't help.
- BinaryIdiot 12y ago
  I don't know, I've worked on some large government projects where things like this could have possibly slipped through because an engineer or two thought it was a clever way to workaround the issue. Granted they should have known and may have known but I'm not convinced they had to have known.
O____________O 12y ago
They probably tasked a junior programmer with working around SSL I don't think I've seen a junior anything who was informed and insightful enough to write a network proxy, including SSL support, and the necessary certificate work.
JoachimS 12y ago
How could you add mitm functionality by mistake?
- ptaipale 12y ago
  Because you call it "enhanced functionality featuring cloud services", not a "man in the middle attack". And calling it enhanced is not always an unreasonable interpretation. For instance, take the case of a cheap mobile phone with a very limited bandwidth. You can increase the end user satisfaction considerably if you move some of the functionality to a server layer so that when you browse, the things actually happen somewhere in a cloud and your phone is just displaying the result, without being the actual browser as seen by the site you visit. Nokia did this with some of the cheaper devices, and I think it was quite OK. It comes down to how much you trust that party, of course, and how critical your communication is.
eitally 12y ago
I think you give them too much credit. This was probably a decision made by a non-technical group without input from a technical group (e.g. Marketing goes and does something without even thinking of contacting Engineering), and whoever slipstreamed it into the factory image just followed instructions unquestioningly. This will likely result in an eventual retraction and apology, and internal process improvements being made to prevent such things from happening again. Such things will eventually happen again because large orgs are inefficient and individual employees are frustrated by inefficiency, so they'll work around the protocols. Rinse & repeat.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

by kentonv 12y ago

WestCoastJustin 12y ago

Cannot see how this could possibly be true. Having been privy to OS bundling for products, I can assure you there is lengthy contracts, and negotiations, about exactly what is happening. You do no simply walk up to Lenovo and have your "software" installed into the OS without a very detailed contract and pay structure. There also looks to be js injected into pages, which is serving up the ads, and a comment about Lenovo [1]. Think about what the means. There was a project at this company, where they had meetings, project plans, testing to make sure it worked, and a very detailed idea of what was going on. Never mind all the ramping up capacity due to new Lenovo's boxes coming on-line. There is zero chance this was some low level junior programmer fly by night operation. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9072542 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9072542

kentonv 12y ago
Oh I'm sure they had lots of meetings about the contracts and pay structure, and they may have done testing to make sure it didn't break things, but apparently no one did a security review. Sadly, this doesn't surprise me that much. If they did know about the problem, they could have fixed it. If the app simply generated a new key as part of first-time use, then it would just be run-of-the-mill crapware rather than a gaping security hole. Even if Lenovo has malicious intent, it would still have been in their best interests to do at least that, yet they didn't. Hence I assume it was incompetence.
- moe 12y ago
  but apparently no one did a security review It doesn't take a "security review" to spot a gaping security and privacy violation like this. Any engineer with even the slightest clue of how a browser and "the internet" works would have called this out during the first "How does this product work?"-presentation. Let's not pretend Lenovo is staffed with monkeys.
  - e12e 12y ago
    “Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.” Remember stuff like this: http://www.cryptofails.com/post/70059600123/saltstack-rsa-e-d-1 http://www.cryptofails.com/post/70059600123/saltstack-rsa-e-... (Which, possibly unfairly, is one reason I'm leaning more towards ansible than saltstack to this day -- I mean, if stuff like that got through... what else, in more complex areas of the system?)
    - freehunter 12y ago
      The problem in Lenovo's situation is, calling it incompetence is the real stretch. You could call Charles Manson incompetent saying he just didn't know what he was doing was wrong, but everyone knows he was just evil. Never falsely attribute to incompetence what is actually ascribable to malice. You can't come in here with a straight face and say that no one at Lenovo considered the security risk of including this software. If it was considered and they pushed ahead with it anyway, that's malice.
      - e12e 12y ago
        I don't think anyone there thought/realized that they were including a backdoor usable by any number of third parties (by virtue of installing a mitm-cert, and giving away the key). And this case is much worse than any other crapware-by-way-of-oem than I've heard of. But given the amount of nasty stuff most vendors seem to install on systems -- it appears to me that no one really looks at what is installed, or gives much thought to the consequences. It's negligent, and in this case probably criminally so -- and that might constitute "an evil" -- but I don't think this is the result of someone's overt intentional evil act. I don't think anyone actually did consider the security risk of this particular piece of software. Maybe I'm naive, but if nothing else, the risk of lawsuits/backlash seems too great in this case. I don't like ads and bloatware, but I think calling them "evil" is diluting what "evil" means. I might be wrong, of course. But I don't think any of the big OEMs does any real review of the crap that is installed on computers -- and I think forgetting to generate an unique cert/key on post-install/first run is an error -- not intentional. Deciding to install this kind of crap strikes me as a very poor decision -- but I'm still not sure I'd consider it evil. Evil would be using the Intel management co-prosessor to do something similar -- presumably then a clean install wouldn't help.
BinaryIdiot 12y ago
I don't know, I've worked on some large government projects where things like this could have possibly slipped through because an engineer or two thought it was a clever way to workaround the issue. Granted they should have known and may have known but I'm not convinced they had to have known.

O____________O 12y ago

They probably tasked a junior programmer with working around SSL I don't think I've seen a junior anything who was informed and insightful enough to write a network proxy, including SSL support, and the necessary certificate work.

JoachimS 12y ago

How could you add mitm functionality by mistake?

ptaipale 12y ago
Because you call it "enhanced functionality featuring cloud services", not a "man in the middle attack". And calling it enhanced is not always an unreasonable interpretation. For instance, take the case of a cheap mobile phone with a very limited bandwidth. You can increase the end user satisfaction considerably if you move some of the functionality to a server layer so that when you browse, the things actually happen somewhere in a cloud and your phone is just displaying the result, without being the actual browser as seen by the site you visit. Nokia did this with some of the cheaper devices, and I think it was quite OK. It comes down to how much you trust that party, of course, and how critical your communication is.

eitally 12y ago

I think you give them too much credit. This was probably a decision made by a non-technical group without input from a technical group (e.g. Marketing goes and does something without even thinking of contacting Engineering), and whoever slipstreamed it into the factory image just followed instructions unquestioningly. This will likely result in an eventual retraction and apology, and internal process improvements being made to prevent such things from happening again. Such things will eventually happen again because large orgs are inefficient and individual employees are frustrated by inefficiency, so they'll work around the protocols. Rinse & repeat.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]