Researchers crack open malware that hid for 5 years

Re:Researchers crack open malware that hid for 5 years by WalterBright on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @03:10PM (#12264115)

If you can update the firmware over a network, you have an uncloseable exploit vector.

ROMs are not unfixable. They do require physical access, though, which eliminates nearly all of the risk.

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Re:Researchers crack open malware that hid for 5 years by infinite8s on Wednesday August 10, 2016 @05:07PM (#12264751)

Even if those updates require signature verification with a public key stored in ROM? I guess the signing key cold get out or you could patch the firmware to skip the signature check (the way the initial iPhone was jailbroken)

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Re:Researchers crack open malware that hid for 5 years by heavenlyhash on Wednesday August 17, 2016 @03:23PM (#12307562)

We also literally just had the Windows key leaks within the last week. Un-updatable signing keys are still an uncloseable exploit vector. (And updatable signing keys are an uncloseable exploit vector. You can't win.)

Physical-access-only updates: yes please. We know what the security boundary is on those, and how to reset it.

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