Windows RT Jailbroken To Run Third-Party Desktop Apps

An anonymous reader writes "We all knew it was just a matter of time, now it looks like Windows RT has been Jailbroken. From the article: 'The hack, performed by Clokr, exploits a vulnerability in the Windows kernel that has existed for a long time — since before Microsoft ported Windows from x86 to ARM, in fact. Basically, the Windows kernel on your computer is configured to only execute files that meet a certain level of authentication. There are four levels: Unsigned (0), Authenticode (4), Microsoft (8), and Windows (12). On your x86 Windows system, the default setting is Unsigned — you can run anything you like. With Windows RT, the default, hard-coded setting is Microsoft (8); i.e. only apps signed by Microsoft, or parts of Windows itself, can be executed.'"

Comments

All the users will be happy.

[Anonymous Coward]

All 3 of them.

Crack, Rip, Hack, Jailbreak ...

[bill_mcgonigle]

"Windows RT Gains Solution to Allow Customers to Run Any Software They Choose"

And we wonder why people don't "get" Software Freedom. Somebody please remember to name the next software-freedom work-around "murder" just to keep the bad PR going.

Re:Developing Applications

[Dudds]

Windows RT contains a complete Win32 API environment (all the standard DLLs are there: kernel32.dll, user32.dll, etc).

Visual Studio 2012 comes with the ARM compiler, so building executables is fairly easy. The restriction, to not allow ARM Win32 applications, only came late in the development cycle, so it's really only hacked in. Visual Studio will even allow native development for ARM applications, going as far to remote debugging the application, by simply adding a "enabled" setting to the ARM manifest file.

The Windows RT SDK for building executables is not required to link existing applications, only a library file is required and that is easily built (in the XDA thread, a tool was posted that builds library files from live DLLs).

Summary continuation

[Translation Error]

Since the summary ends before actually getting to the vulnerability it started to describe, here's the relevant text:

Now, in theory, you could change this hard-coded setting--but all Windows RT devices use UEFI, and so Secure Boot detects the altered code and locks the system down. Secure Boot doesn't stop you from changing the setting in memory, however