The branded bug disclosure page should be something about "Basic Cable" or "PortsCenter"
ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks
81–90 of 152 posts
Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plus they are a Shanghai-based company and can be compelled by the Chinese government to place hardware back doors. (They are great for makers though, very affordable, lots of features.)
Every hardware manufacturer can be instructed/bribed/forced to add backdoors to their hardware by their own government, hence the necessary push for open drivers/firmware (Broadcom itself, just to name one, has had strong ties with the US govt for a long time). I can imagine a meeting in which some high rank officer says "Here's our backdoor blob, you merge this to all your chipsets firmware, so when necessary we can…
> I can't imagine any manufacturer risking their business by replying "nope, we won't comply"
How about the risk to their business when a multinational corporation is X-raying their cores for backdoors (as one does) and finds the state backdoor, and then decides to no longer do business with the hardware manufacturer because of it—and also publicizes the existence of the backdoor, such that other multinationals pull out as well?
(I say "multinationals" because, presumably, purely-domestic corporations could be compelled by the state to accept the backdoor and say nothing about it.)
Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks
#83Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
These are really nice $5 chips with Wifi programmable with the Arduino toolset. Tons of IoT people use these to integrate various instrumentation and control into their houses or science projects. For instance, you can hook one up to a temperature sensor and a relay and control your heater. There are probably millions of these installed, hooked up to important hardware. So this makes wardriving fun again, I guess, if…
Just to give you some idea of how easy these are to use: In 20 mins with a small breadboard, a few Dupont wires, a Nodemcu ESP8266, a DHT22 with a pull up resister I've got a desk temperature sensor. Add: https://esphome.io/ ... and it talks MQTT and connects straight into Home Assistant.
No soldering needed?
Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks
#85I'd like to see a writeup how they discovered these weaknesses.
Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Portions of the US government have tried multiple times to make the addition of backdoors required via public force of law. They're still trying to promote it now. Short of that public requirement, they can ask & issue orders to not discuss the matter, tie it with defense orders, or imply the withholding of export or trade licenses, all contingent upon cooperation. In the end it looks pretty blurry between a request…
> they can ask & issue orders to not discuss the matter, They can't do that.
Citation needed?
Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
"avoiding patent infringement lawsuits via opacity"
Has there been any successful patent infringement lawsuits over the last three years that targets a Chinese company that has infringed upon a US company? Isn't that part of the issue in the current trade deal talks with China?
Not a US company being infringed, but Lego has gotten a Chinese court to order Lepin to stop making imitations of Lego products. [1] Since arrests have been made over Lepin not complying [2], it seems like the ruling has teeth.
[1] https://www.brothers-brick.com/2018/11/05/lepin-ordered-to-s...
[2] https://www.brothers-brick.com/2019/04/28/arrests-made-in-le...
Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks
#88First and foremost, this speaks to the ubiquity and hacker friendliness of Espressif's chips. Most of their competitors (I'm looking at you, Broadcom), prefer security through obscurity and make it extremely difficult to get access to chips, let alone SDKs. I am certain that similar vulnerability exist in every embedded WiFi chipset out there. That being said, the status quo is completely untenable. Connectivity has…
yes. "Most of their competitors... prefer security through obscurity"
Count Texas Instruments ("TI") in this camp.
For example, Josh Wyatt of TI is proud of TI's "black box" approach to security, and even became a bit defensive about TI's closed source / "you don't need to know" aspects of its security for its CC3220 chips:
https://e2e.ti.com/support/wireless-connectivity/wifi/f/968/...
Why the F would anyone use these chips, when you can use a garden variety MCU, use a good TLS stack like WolfSSL or BearSSL, and fully control / own what goes into your product?
Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks
#89First and foremost, this speaks to the ubiquity and hacker friendliness of Espressif's chips. Most of their competitors (I'm looking at you, Broadcom), prefer security through obscurity and make it extremely difficult to get access to chips, let alone SDKs. I am certain that similar vulnerability exist in every embedded WiFi chipset out there. That being said, the status quo is completely untenable. Connectivity has…
yes. "Most of their competitors... prefer security through obscurity" Count Texas Instruments ("TI") in this camp. For example, Josh Wyatt of TI is proud of TI's "black box" approach to security, and even became a bit defensive about TI's closed source / "you don't need to know" aspects of its security for its CC3220 chips: https://e2e.ti.com/support/wireless-connectivity/wifi/f/968/... Why the F would anyone use the…
The fact that Wyatt & co. needed to question in the first place why the stack should be open is disturbing to say the least.
I hope no one seriously relies on any of these products in any secure application. Indeed, many of the vendors in that thread described how they are moving away from the chip due to TI's asinine stance on the issue.
Re: ESP32/ESP8266 Wi-Fi Attacks
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Portions of the US government have tried multiple times to make the addition of backdoors required via public force of law. They're still trying to promote it now. Short of that public requirement, they can ask & issue orders to not discuss the matter, tie it with defense orders, or imply the withholding of export or trade licenses, all contingent upon cooperation. In the end it looks pretty blurry between a request…
> they can ask & issue orders to not discuss the matter, They can't do that.
You seem to be making specific, narrow arguments to cast doubt on a much wider claim.
Care to state your belief about the relations between the TLAs and the larger networking and communications firms in the US?