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Hiding Backdoors In Hardware

quartertime writes "Remember Reflections on Trusting Trust, the classic paper describing how to hide a nearly undetectable backdoor inside the C compiler? Here's an interesting piece about how to hide a nearly undetectable backdoor inside hardware. The post describes how to install a backdoor in the expansion ROM of a PCI card, which during the boot process patches the BIOS to patch grub to patch the kernel to give the controller remote root access. Because the backdoor is actually housed in the hardware, even if the victim reinstalls the operating system from a CD, they won't clear out the backdoor. I wonder whether China, with its dominant position in the computer hardware assembly business, has already used this technique for espionage. This perhaps explains why the NSA has its own chip fabrication plant."

6 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Lojack for Laptops... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm not sure that's a good example of a sentence...

  2. Re:Undetectable? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    OMG, but what if THAT machine is infected, too?!

  3. Re:The NSA by H0p313ss · · Score: 3, Funny

    undetectable backdoor inside hardware.

    This perhaps explains why the NSA has its own chip fabrication plant.

    If the NSA broke in and stuck a small device into an empty PCI slot in your computer, would you notice?

    Now here's a good reason to use an iPad or macbook.

    --
    XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
  4. Re:Undetectable? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Then you need a turtle.

  5. Re:proprietary firmware by abigor · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yours is probably the best post I've read in a month.

  6. Re:Not bad but.. by PitaBred · · Score: 3, Funny

    The magic words are "this will make it faster"