Re:Christopher Domas: Hardware Backdoors in X86 CPUs
by jacquesm on Friday August 10, 2018 @04:10PM
(#17736373)
> Privilege escalation is not a problem on ATMs.
Re:Christopher Domas: Hardware Backdoors in X86 CPUs
by ChuckMcM on Friday August 10, 2018 @06:46PM
(#17737242)
I expect that most people miss that ATM manufacturers continue to put security holes in ATMs (https://www.wired.com/2014/11/nashville/) one of the 'fixes' was to make bank access unprivileged. But wait, if I have an escalation vulnerability ...
Re:Christopher Domas: Hardware Backdoors in X86 CPUs
by Dylan16807 on Friday August 10, 2018 @07:25PM
(#17737405)
Sigh. Okay let me rephrase. The thing normally called "privilege escalation", where software that is executing on a machine escapes a sandbox or gets into kernel mode, is not a problem on ATMs.
That page is talking about pressing keys to exploit software flaws in already-privileged software, which is an extremely separate topic.
Re:Christopher Domas: Hardware Backdoors in X86 CPUs
by jacquesm on Friday August 10, 2018 @07:30PM
(#17737424)
Privilege escalations come in many shapes and sizes, it is not limited to software escaping a sandbox or to get into kernel mode, it is also explicitly used to refer to users of a system managing to leverage their normal access into a more powerful one.
Re:Christopher Domas: Hardware Backdoors in X86 CPUs
by Dylan16807 on Friday August 10, 2018 @07:45PM
(#17737483)
But in context I was clearly talking about the former, because the topic is software exploiting CPU backdoors.
Privilege escalation is not a problem on ATMs.
> It pains me terribly every time I power up the Agilent signal analyzer in the lab and it boots Windows XP on its Pentium III chip.
Why? Just treat it as you do most hardware, under full control of whatever you attach it to. Zero security present, zero security needed.