Re:Making sense of the alleged Supermicro motherboard attack
by Scaevolus on Friday October 05, 2018 @02:30PM
(#18150522)
Like hiding cameras in Xerox machines: https://electricalstrategies.com/about/in-the-news/spies-in-...
Re:Making sense of the alleged Supermicro motherboard attack
by scoggs on Friday October 05, 2018 @03:00PM
(#18150782)
Thank you so much. That was a wonderful read and I really enjoyed that.
Re:Making sense of the alleged Supermicro motherboard attack
by PeterisP on Friday October 05, 2018 @01:16PM
(#18149876)
It's not that you get one chance to do something like this, it's that there is one total chance to do something like this. After it's been discovered, it's much harder to do it again for everyone - so if you never do it, then you don't get the benefit and Russia or USA or someone else does that and gets the benefit and you still lose the ability to do it in the future.
Re:Making sense of the alleged Supermicro motherboard attack
by e12e on Friday October 05, 2018 @03:08PM
(#18150868)
The second generation chips mentioned in the Bloomberg article were fitted inside the plastic of the motherboard. I don't think it's a stretch to imagine that such chips might be really difficult to spot. And if they aren't the natural next step for a nation state is to build an xx billion dollar fab factory and produce smd "resistors" that contain one of these chips.
I think the real trick is a real covert channel that's hard to find both analytically and via stastics/machine learning. Which is stil high enough bw.
Re:Making sense of the alleged Supermicro motherboard attack
by visarga on Friday October 05, 2018 @01:52PM
(#18150182)
It's so hard to detect that I doubt they will never do it again.
Re:Making sense of the alleged Supermicro motherboard attack
by e12e on Friday October 05, 2018 @03:03PM
(#18150810)
The second generation chips mentioned in the Bloomberg article were fitted inside the plastic of the motherboard. I don't think it's a stretch to imagine that such chips might be really difficult to spot. And if they aren't the natural next step for a nation state is to build an xx billion dollar fab factory and produce smd "resistors" that contain one of these chips.
I think the real trick is a real covert channel that's hard to find both analytically and via stastics/machine learning.
I.e., it's not.
The lesson of the Snowden leaks is clearly this: if it can be imagined, and it can be useful, and they have the budget, and it's remotely doable, then it's been done.
China almost certainly did this because they could. You only get one chance to do something like this, so you have to do it even if it risks losing the ability to do it in the future: if you never do it, then you never get the benefit, and if you do do it, you get to do it once, and once is better than never.