> there is no malicious piece of hardware that the attacker tricks you into using > All the attacker needs is 5 minutes alone with the computer, a screwdriver, and some easily portable hardware. Just started reading, but the comparison is already a little bizarre. It almost seems like the digital version of "This murderer is on the loose and you're in danger! He doesn't need to inject poison into your food. All he ne…
As a general rule, anyone with physical access to your machine already owns it. Physical security matters, a lot. That being said, malicious hardware is a problem. A hacked phone charging terminal at the airport could certainly be a serious problem if there are enough vulnerabilities in the USB stack.
When Lightning Strikes Thrice: Breaking Thunderbolt 3 Security
21–30 of 109 posts
Re: When Lightning Strikes Thrice: Breaking Thunderbolt 3 Security
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if an attacker has unencumbered access to one’s device, all security goes flying out the window This is rapidly starting to become less true - full disk encryption is everywhere, backed by hardware TPMs; the Lockdown LSM prevents root from owing the boot chain; devices with soldered RAM are functionally immune to cold boot attacks. There are still things an attacker can do - put a hardware keylogger on the keyboard…
This is rapidly starting to become less true Unfortunately, both for right-to-repair and actually owning the hardware you bought.
Re: When Lightning Strikes Thrice: Breaking Thunderbolt 3 Security
#23Let's break down each of the "vulnerability".
1. "However, we have found authenticity is not verified at boot time, upon connecting the device, or at any later point." This is actually false. Like, the author either didn't experiment properly or is lying/purposely misleading you. The firmware IS verified at boot for Alpine Ridge and Titan Ridge (Intel's TB3 controllers). They aren't for older controllers which does NOT support TB3. When verification fails, the controller falls back into a "safe mode" which does NOT run the firmware code for any of the ARC processors in the Ridge controller (there are a handful of processors where the firmware contains compressed code for). I'm willing to bet the author did not manage to reverse engineer the proprietary Huffman compression the firmware uses and therefore couldn't have loaded their own firmware. Because if they did, it wouldn't have worked. Now the RSA signature verification scheme they use to verify the firmware does suffer from some weaknesses but afaik doesn't lead to arbitrary code execution (on any of the Ridge ARC processors). I would love to be proven wrong here with real evidence though ;)
2. Basically the string identifiers inside the firmware isn't signed/verified. This has no security implications beyond you can spoof identifiers and make the string "pwned" appear in system details when you plug the device in and authenticate it. Basically if you've ever developed custom USB devices you can see how silly this is as a "vulnerability."
3. This is literally the same as #2.
4. Yes, TB2 is vulnerable to many DMA attacks as demonstrated in the past. Yes, TB3 has a TB2 compatibility mode. Yes, that means the same vulnerabilities exist in compatibility mode which is why you can disable it.
5. This one is technically true. If you open the case up, and flash the SPI chip containing the TB3 firmware, you can patch the security level set in BIOS and do stuff like re-enable TB2 if the user disabled it. But if I were the attacker, I would instead look at the SPI chip right next to it containing the UEFI firmware and NVRAM variables (most of which aren't signed/encryption in any modern PC).
6. SPI chips have interfaces for writing, erasing, and locking. If you have direct access to the chip you can abuse these pins to permanently brick the device. Here's another way: take your screwdriver and jam it into the computer.
7. Apple does not enable TB3 security features on Boot Camp. I guess this one is vaguely the only real "vulnerability" although it's well known and Apple doesn't care much about Windows security anyways (they don't enable Intel Boot Guard or BIOS Guard or TPM or any other Intel/Microsoft security feature).
Not that it matters but my personal experience with TB3 is that I've done significant reverse engineering of the Ridge controllers for the Hackintosh community.
Re: When Lightning Strikes Thrice: Breaking Thunderbolt 3 Security
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is rapidly starting to become less true Unfortunately, both for right-to-repair and actually owning the hardware you bought.
TPMs don't impede your ability to repair anything. Soldered ram is a hassle, but it's not any more malicious than soldered CPUs. It's a design choice, and tradeoffs had to be made.
There are some stories like this: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/akw558/apples-t2-security...
It's suggested that many such devices might be stolen. But there will also be devices where the user forgot to wipe their data (or didn't know how); or devices that are only just damaged enough that you can't wipe the user data.
Probably an official Apple store can refurbish them somehow, but that is the NOBUS / EARN IT argument.
Re: When Lightning Strikes Thrice: Breaking Thunderbolt 3 Security
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a general rule, anyone with physical access to your machine already owns it. Physical security matters, a lot. That being said, malicious hardware is a problem. A hacked phone charging terminal at the airport could certainly be a serious problem if there are enough vulnerabilities in the USB stack.
Please tell this to the Intel SGX folks. They don’t seem to have gotten that memo yet...
Like so: https://youtu.be/BKorP55Aqvg
Re: When Lightning Strikes Thrice: Breaking Thunderbolt 3 Security
#26> there is no malicious piece of hardware that the attacker tricks you into using > All the attacker needs is 5 minutes alone with the computer, a screwdriver, and some easily portable hardware. Just started reading, but the comparison is already a little bizarre. It almost seems like the digital version of "This murderer is on the loose and you're in danger! He doesn't need to inject poison into your food. All he ne…
As a general rule, anyone with physical access to your machine already owns it. Physical security matters, a lot. That being said, malicious hardware is a problem. A hacked phone charging terminal at the airport could certainly be a serious problem if there are enough vulnerabilities in the USB stack.
People frequently say this, but never really explain it. As far as I can tell, it translates to "Nobody cares about physical security" - except it's clear that people /do/. Things like Boot Guard are only really relevant to physical attacks. DMA protection in firmware is only really relevant to physical attacks. It's extremely obvious that the industry is attempting to avoid short term physical access to a device being sufficient to compromise it, and research that demonstrates that it's still possible is valuable.
Re: When Lightning Strikes Thrice: Breaking Thunderbolt 3 Security
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
TPMs don't impede your ability to repair anything. Soldered ram is a hassle, but it's not any more malicious than soldered CPUs. It's a design choice, and tradeoffs had to be made.
> TPMs don't impede your ability to repair anything There are some stories like this: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/akw558/apples-t2-security... It's suggested that many such devices might be stolen. But there will also be devices where the user forgot to wipe their data (or didn't know how); or devices that are only just damaged enough that you can't wipe the user data. Probably an official Apple store can refu…
Re: When Lightning Strikes Thrice: Breaking Thunderbolt 3 Security
#28What would it take to have a Thunderbolt/USB C condom? You know, like those standard USB adapter that just drops the data leads on a usb charger to make attacks like this impossible. Maybe we would have to implement a hardware switch on the device itself? I'm not going to feel safe charging with a public use charger until I find some way to insure only power and not data is making it to my device. Even POE feels like…
If you ever plug in a charging cable and get the prompt, you know something is wrong.
Re: When Lightning Strikes Thrice: Breaking Thunderbolt 3 Security
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a general rule, anyone with physical access to your machine already owns it. Physical security matters, a lot. That being said, malicious hardware is a problem. A hacked phone charging terminal at the airport could certainly be a serious problem if there are enough vulnerabilities in the USB stack.
> As a general rule, anyone with physical access to your machine already owns it. People frequently say this, but never really explain it. As far as I can tell, it translates to "Nobody cares about physical security" - except it's clear that people /do/. Things like Boot Guard are only really relevant to physical attacks. DMA protection in firmware is only really relevant to physical attacks. It's extremely obvious t…
All of this is a bit silly though, because physical intervention implies a level of commitment that lends itself to more reliable approaches: https://xkcd.com/538/
Re: When Lightning Strikes Thrice: Breaking Thunderbolt 3 Security
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As a general rule, anyone with physical access to your machine already owns it. People frequently say this, but never really explain it. As far as I can tell, it translates to "Nobody cares about physical security" - except it's clear that people /do/. Things like Boot Guard are only really relevant to physical attacks. DMA protection in firmware is only really relevant to physical attacks. It's extremely obvious t…
An example: Macbook chargers these days have charge ports that are also used for USB devices. This means that if a user plugs in a compromised "charger", it can set its own HID type (and pretend it is a keyboard or a mouse), open a terminal and start typing malware into the computer. All of this is a bit silly though, because physical intervention implies a level of commitment that lends itself to more reliable appro…