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How I discovered a hidden microphone on a Chinese NanoKVM

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Re: How I discovered a hidden microphone on a Chinese NanoKVM

#41

Post by parineum »

tayiorrobinson wrote: post #3

To be fair, the microphone _is_ listed on the specsheet of the LicheeRV Nano https://wiki.sipeed.com/hardware/en/lichee/RV_Nano/1_intro.h... I assume they didn't intend to put a mic on the KVM product, but they wanted to make a KVM product, already had this SBC product, which reusing their existing stock of helped keep cost low. Should they have been more up front about it it? Sure, and it's not great that they had a…

The Chinese part makes one think the Chinese could access the microphone.

Nevermind that, if they could access the device, they'd also be able to read your kvm i/o.

Re: How I discovered a hidden microphone on a Chinese NanoKVM

#43

Post by motbus3 »

parineum wrote: post #41
tayiorrobinson wrote: post #3

To be fair, the microphone _is_ listed on the specsheet of the LicheeRV Nano https://wiki.sipeed.com/hardware/en/lichee/RV_Nano/1_intro.h... I assume they didn't intend to put a mic on the KVM product, but they wanted to make a KVM product, already had this SBC product, which reusing their existing stock of helped keep cost low. Should they have been more up front about it it? Sure, and it's not great that they had a…

The Chinese part makes one think the Chinese could access the microphone. Nevermind that, if they could access the device, they'd also be able to read your kvm i/o.

You might be right but I think we cannot assume malice when it could be laziness. It might be that the exact same board has multiple target audiences and they just rebrand it for different purposes with different pricing.

That said, the microphone is so weirdly positioned that it gets suspicious indeed.

Re: How I discovered a hidden microphone on a Chinese NanoKVM

#44

Post by runjake »

ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #35
Y_Y wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

just fan noise? https://arxiv.org/abs/1606.05915 Any signal that you can modulate can be an exfiltration channel, and fan noise is no different.

I wonder if that's feasible in a room filled with many servers and fans going?

Yes, just modulate the fan noise on the transmitter, and apply a filter on the receiver.

Re: How I discovered a hidden microphone on a Chinese NanoKVM

#45

Post by seszett »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #14
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't strike me as that useful to have a hidden microphone in a KVM product as most of the time, they're going to be stuck in server rooms with just lots of fan noise to record. Far more of an issue would be any kind of keylogger built into the software, which is why it's best to go for devices that support open source software.

It is possible to keylog via audio. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10190721

It would take an especially perverse mind to keylog using audio on a KVM, though. The KVM basically has access to everything, any secondary spying using a microphone or a camera would provide very little added value.

Re: How I discovered a hidden microphone on a Chinese NanoKVM

#46

Post by inetknght »

motbus3 wrote: post #43
parineum wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese part makes one think the Chinese could access the microphone. Nevermind that, if they could access the device, they'd also be able to read your kvm i/o.

You might be right but I think we cannot assume malice when it could be laziness. It might be that the exact same board has multiple target audiences and they just rebrand it for different purposes with different pricing. That said, the microphone is so weirdly positioned that it gets suspicious indeed.

> I think we cannot assume malice when it could be laziness

Why can't it be both?

Re: How I discovered a hidden microphone on a Chinese NanoKVM

#48

Post by Ekaros »

motbus3 wrote: post #43
parineum wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese part makes one think the Chinese could access the microphone. Nevermind that, if they could access the device, they'd also be able to read your kvm i/o.

You might be right but I think we cannot assume malice when it could be laziness. It might be that the exact same board has multiple target audiences and they just rebrand it for different purposes with different pricing. That said, the microphone is so weirdly positioned that it gets suspicious indeed.

>That said, the microphone is so weirdly positioned that it gets suspicious indeed.

How is it weirdly positioned? To me it seems there is rather few options for such small board.

Re: How I discovered a hidden microphone on a Chinese NanoKVM

#49

Post by Ekaros »

snapdeficit wrote: post #42

A kvm that requires Chinese dns servers? Just the fact it KvM over Ethernet should set off alarm bells from here till next Thursday. I would have a hard time trusting an internet based kvm.

Should I really be more trusting of some NSA controlled DNS server?

Re: How I discovered a hidden microphone on a Chinese NanoKVM

#50

Post by ghostpepper »

A lot of the complaints here don't make a lot of sense and read like the author has never used an embedded linux device. The previously reported bugs are more substantial - hardcoded secrets for JWT access and firmware encryption, everything running as root, etc.

However, "Chinese product uses Chinese DNS servers and it's hard to change them" or "no systemd nor apt installed" are totally expected and hardly make it "riddled with security flaws". Same with tcpdump and aircrack being installed - these hardly compromise the security more than having everything run as root.

I would expect most users of this device will not be exposing the web interface externally, and the fact that they ship with Tailscale installed is actually impressive. I can't imagine the lack of CSRF protection will be a vulnerability for 99% of users.

I am curious what the "weird" version of wireguard the author refers to but based on their apparent lack of knowledge on embedded systems in general I would not be shocked to find that it's totally innocuous.

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