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TPM GPIO fail: How bad OEM firmware ruins Intel TPM security

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41–50 of 136 posts

Re: TPM GPIO fail: How bad OEM firmware ruins Intel TPM security

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For us, the benefits of TPMs and measured boot for personal use are a lot more obscure. You'll sometimes hear people claim it protects against 'evil maid attacks' where an attacker repeatedly gets physical access to your laptop. The truth is it provides no such protection. TPMs give you fine and adequate protections in many scenarios, even physical ones. They also provide you with better protection for private key…

> TPMs give you fine and adequate protections in many scenarios [...] my `ssh-tpm-agent` project I agree that's adequate, in the sense that keeping the an SSH key as a password-protected file on disk is adequate, and having it be a password-protected secret in the TPM is no less secure than that. But the whole point of binding a key to hardware is to be secure even if a remote attacker has gotten root on your machine…

> But the whole point of binding a key to hardware is to be secure even if a remote attacker has gotten root on your machine. An attacker with root can simply replace the software that reads your PIN with a modified version that also saves it somewhere. Then they can use the key whenever your computer is online, even if they can't copy the key off.

It protects against extraction, not usage on the machine itself. Of course they can use the secret on the compromised machine.

> And although that's a bit limiting, once they've SSHed to a host as me once they can add their own key to authorized_keys in many cases.

Assuming they can edit the file.

> That's why Yubikeys and U2F keys and suchlike have a physical button.

The TPM spec has a policy setup to account for some fingerprint reader that can be used to authenticate. I haven't been able to figure out how/what/whys of the implementation here but this is very much a thing.

Re: TPM GPIO fail: How bad OEM firmware ruins Intel TPM security

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and you can relay that authentication, too. The same way the fake laptop can relay your password to me, i could also relay the generated TOTP code from the stolen laptop to the fake in front of you. As tried to convey, the fake laptop is basically a full MITM on your screen/keyboard. Making a machine visuals non-reproducible helps that, but only if the attacker cannot easily switch the exterior parts (chassis, ke…

> The same way the fake laptop can relay your password to me, i could also relay the generated TOTP code from the stolen laptop to the fake in front of you. Also any authentication to generate that TOTP in the first place. As tried to convey, the fake laptop is basically a full MITM on your screen/keyboard. This is a hollywood level threat scenario. It involves the attacker having intimate familiarity with the operat…

Why twice? You can keep the fake laptop.

The OS does not matter? Grab the video output via HDMI/DisplayPort and insert the keypresses via USB. Thats likely gonna work. Basically what modern KVM switches do. And setup the fake laptop as VNC client. Same tech that companies can use to remotely manage servers.

Re: TPM GPIO fail: How bad OEM firmware ruins Intel TPM security

#43
post #19

> briefly grounding the reset pin of a discrete TPM device with a pair of tweezers Ah, the tweezers strike again, just not for Nintendo this time. Truly the most universal hardware hacking tool.

But this page is a no-tweezer hack; by reprogramming the GPIO pin that drives the reset; this is software only so more of a problem.

Re: TPM GPIO fail: How bad OEM firmware ruins Intel TPM security

#44
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its meant for secureboot, but i suppose the rest of the platform, built usually by other ppl than ones who designed the TPM, needs to also implement it correctly. an d as this article shows, this is not an easy feat. (this attack seems silly but it's really clever tbh. good inspired idea likely based in lots of domain expertise). - if you can protect the boot-chain with secureboot, what you can do for your private ke…

Heh I always thought that TPM was there to secure anything. If it's only meant for secure boot then I understand the poor tooling and absence of APIs to use the thing properly inside applications.

It's not meant for Secure Boot. They are two separate, but adjacent, technologies that provide their own security properties in a boot chain.

This is a common misconception.

Re: TPM GPIO fail: How bad OEM firmware ruins Intel TPM security

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The same way the fake laptop can relay your password to me, i could also relay the generated TOTP code from the stolen laptop to the fake in front of you. Also any authentication to generate that TOTP in the first place. As tried to convey, the fake laptop is basically a full MITM on your screen/keyboard. This is a hollywood level threat scenario. It involves the attacker having intimate familiarity with the operat…

Why twice? You can keep the fake laptop. The OS does not matter? Grab the video output via HDMI/DisplayPort and insert the keypresses via USB. Thats likely gonna work. Basically what modern KVM switches do. And setup the fake laptop as VNC client. Same tech that companies can use to remotely manage servers.

> The OS does not matter?

Of course it does. You are replaying the logos and screens.

> Grab the video output via HDMI/DisplayPort and insert the keypresses via USB. Thats likely gonna work. Basically what modern KVM switches do. And setup the fake laptop as VNC client. Same tech that companies can use to remotely manage servers.

You believe you can boot up an entire VNC client to display something that would take most machines under a second to display?

Re: TPM GPIO fail: How bad OEM firmware ruins Intel TPM security

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why twice? You can keep the fake laptop. The OS does not matter? Grab the video output via HDMI/DisplayPort and insert the keypresses via USB. Thats likely gonna work. Basically what modern KVM switches do. And setup the fake laptop as VNC client. Same tech that companies can use to remotely manage servers.

> The OS does not matter? Of course it does. You are replaying the logos and screens. > Grab the video output via HDMI/DisplayPort and insert the keypresses via USB. Thats likely gonna work. Basically what modern KVM switches do. And setup the fake laptop as VNC client. Same tech that companies can use to remotely manage servers. You believe you can boot up an entire VNC client to display something that would take mo…

> You are replaying the logos and screens

Which the real machine happily gives me via HDMI/DisplayPort.

> You believe you can boot up an entire VNC client to display something that would take most machines under a second to display?

Do i need to? That the user presses the power button does not mean the machine will freshly boot. It could also be an unsuspend/wakeup or some regular ACPI event if the machine is only appearing to be off.

Re: TPM GPIO fail: How bad OEM firmware ruins Intel TPM security

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The OS does not matter? Of course it does. You are replaying the logos and screens. > Grab the video output via HDMI/DisplayPort and insert the keypresses via USB. Thats likely gonna work. Basically what modern KVM switches do. And setup the fake laptop as VNC client. Same tech that companies can use to remotely manage servers. You believe you can boot up an entire VNC client to display something that would take mo…

> You are replaying the logos and screens Which the real machine happily gives me via HDMI/DisplayPort. > You believe you can boot up an entire VNC client to display something that would take most machines under a second to display? Do i need to? That the user presses the power button does not mean the machine will freshly boot. It could also be an unsuspend/wakeup or some regular ACPI event if the machine is only ap…

> Do i need to? That the user presses the power button does not mean the machine will freshly boot. It could also be an unsuspend/wakeup or some regular ACPI event if the machine is only appearing to be off.

This is a completely imaginary scenario. I'd be amazed to see it pulled off.

EDIT: I hear Amazon is still getting pitches for Hacker 2. You might have a shot.

Re: TPM GPIO fail: How bad OEM firmware ruins Intel TPM security

#48
post #28

TPM seems beyond useless to me. I wanted to protect a certificate and private key for a Java application, so that you can't just copy the pkcs12 file and use it elsewhere, but there is no decent API in Java to use a TPM 2 chip. So the road ends there... The only protection now is a hardcoded passphrase in the application but you don't have to be a genius to figure that out...

its meant for secureboot, but i suppose the rest of the platform, built usually by other ppl than ones who designed the TPM, needs to also implement it correctly. an d as this article shows, this is not an easy feat. (this attack seems silly but it's really clever tbh. good inspired idea likely based in lots of domain expertise). - if you can protect the boot-chain with secureboot, what you can do for your private ke…

TPM isn't just for secure boot. Windows utilizes it for Bitlocker full disk encryption.

It's just not widely used for other applications.

Re: TPM GPIO fail: How bad OEM firmware ruins Intel TPM security

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are replaying the logos and screens Which the real machine happily gives me via HDMI/DisplayPort. > You believe you can boot up an entire VNC client to display something that would take most machines under a second to display? Do i need to? That the user presses the power button does not mean the machine will freshly boot. It could also be an unsuspend/wakeup or some regular ACPI event if the machine is only ap…

> Do i need to? That the user presses the power button does not mean the machine will freshly boot. It could also be an unsuspend/wakeup or some regular ACPI event if the machine is only appearing to be off. This is a completely imaginary scenario. I'd be amazed to see it pulled off. EDIT: I hear Amazon is still getting pitches for Hacker 2. You might have a shot.

Windows Fastboot (active per default) is suspend disguised as shutdown:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-disable-windows-10-fast-s...

Re: TPM GPIO fail: How bad OEM firmware ruins Intel TPM security

#50
post #11
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough, in TPM 2.0 there's way around MITM attacks like that - you can establish encrypted connection between TPM and CPU, which outside first-time configuration (which should happen in controlled environment anyway) should provide reasonable roadblock to successful MITM attack. But CPU-side software needs to use it, and without default well-known keys...

vast majority of fTPM 2.0's are chips placed on the CPU die anyway

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