[Beowulf] Hacked MBs It was only a matter of time

[John Hearns]

A talk by Trammell Hudson entitled Modchips of the State
https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9597-modchips_of_the_state

Hardware implants and supply chain attacks have been in the news recently,
but how feasible are they and what can we do about them? In this talk we'll
examine the design of a proof of concept SPI bus hardware implant that has
similar capabilities to those described in the Bloomberg/Supermicro article
as well as some countermeasures that we can use to try to detect these
"modchips" and increase our trust in our systems.

We don't know how much of the Bloomberg story about hardware implants
installed in Supermicro servers shipped to Apple and Amazon is true, nor do
we know the story behind the story and the reasons for the vehement denials
by all the parties involved.

However, a technical assessment of details of the describe implants reveals
that a supply chain attack on the hardware is definitely possible, that the
capabilities of the BMC can be used to bypass OS protections, and that
there are means to access the BMC that would not necessarily generate
readily identified network traffic.

In this talk we'll examine the design of a proof of concept SPI bus
hardware implant that has similar capabilities to those described in the
Bloomberg/Supermicro article as well as some countermeasures that we can
use to try to detect these "modchips" and increase our trust in our systems.


On Sun, 21 Oct 2018 at 01:57, Chris Samuel <chris at csamuel.org> wrote:

> On Thursday, 4 October 2018 11:47:17 PM AEDT Douglas Eadline wrote:
>
> >
> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how-china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies
>
> So two weeks on and it looks like this wasn't real, and I've read somewhere
> (though I can't find the reference now) that this isn't the first time for
> the
> person who wrote that article.   A lot of people wrote about how this sort
> of attack doesn't really make sense, there are far easier ways to do this
> sort of thing (nobbled BMC firmware probably being one of the easiest)
> and without the problems of possibly thousands of SM boxes trying to
> ping back to a CnC server to set off alarms in a host of companies.
>
> This sums it up nicely..
>
> https://twitter.com/SwiftOnSecurity/status/1053102057245286401
>
> Two weeks since Bloomberg claimed Supermicro servers were backdoored by
> Chinese spying chips.
> No Evidence Whatsoever shows these claims real.
> All companies angrily deny it to Congress.
> Senior US intelligence including Rob Joyce refute it.
> It’s time.
> It’s over.
> This is not true.
>
> --
>  Chris Samuel  :  http://www.csamuel.org/  :  Melbourne, VIC
>
>
>
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