Re:AMD PSB Vendor Locks EPYC CPUs for Enhanced Security at a...
by numpad0 on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @05:00AM
(#24418898)
Attacker might flash a tampered BIOS from inside a VM makes total sense. It’s surprising how many SPI ROM there can be in a box, and how basically they’re all waiting there to be exploited.
Re:AMD PSB Vendor Locks EPYC CPUs for Enhanced Security at a...
by boring_twenties on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @11:59PM
(#24416950)
Cloud vendors should be using coreboot, not UEFI.
Re:AMD PSB Vendor Locks EPYC CPUs for Enhanced Security at a...
by octoberfranklin on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @05:30AM
(#24419104)
Not sure why downvoted. I run blobless coreboot for precisely this reason. My only regret is not being able to find newer x86_64 gear that supports it. OTOH you can still buy in-production arm64 boxes that boot with zero blobs (RK3399).
Re:AMD PSB Vendor Locks EPYC CPUs for Enhanced Security at a...
by freeone3000 on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @01:27AM
(#24417480)
One of the cloud vendors created UEFI.
Re:AMD PSB Vendor Locks EPYC CPUs for Enhanced Security at a...
by boring_twenties on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @01:29AM
(#24417493)
Then they know full well how bad it is!
*Jokes aside, I think Intel created UEFI (for Itanium?), not Microsoft?
Re:AMD PSB Vendor Locks EPYC CPUs for Enhanced Security at a...
by freeone3000 on Wednesday September 09, 2020 @10:35AM
(#24421455)
The consortium has AMD, Intel, and Microsoft listed as contributors, so even if they didn't initially create the thing, they had a hand in it. The executable format used for UEFI is PE, which is telling.
If one segment needs to worry about UEFI rootkits, it's cloud vendors. Very dedicated (nation-state sponsored) attackers could burn/use a zero-day hypervisor escape to installs a UEFI rootkit that tampers with the processor's integrated HSM (as said in the article, tampering with it has already happened and the exploits have been patched by AMD). As I understand it, If a vendor uses full memory encryption, the above exploit could lead to decrypting and exfiltrating other customers' data.