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Backdoor Account Found On Devices Used By White House, US Military (sec-consult.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A hidden backdoor account was discovered embedded in the firmware of devices deployed at the White House and in various US Military strategic centers, more precisely in AMX conference room equipment. The first account was named Black Widow, and after security researchers reported its presence to AMX, the company's employees simply renamed it to Batman thinking nobody will notice. AMX did remove the backdoor after three months. In its firmware's official release notes, AMX claimed that the two accounts were only used for debugging, just like Fortinet claimed that its FortiOS SSH backdoor was used only internally by a management protocol.
That way they can monitor EVERYTHING, everywhere, including subversives in the White House that might foil FBI, NSA & CIA operations.
Nothing to see here. This was a "front door," not a "back door."
"AMX claimed that the two accounts were only used for debugging,"
No, you only use them for debugging.
Even if we choose to trust that you're not using these accounts for nefarious purposes (which we shouldn't), that's not the point. The point is that they exist at all, and just because you created them doesn't mean someone else cannot use them.
.... but somehow I doubt that the anti-encryption crowd will get the point. Instead they'll point out how they, as government, are a different category.
Everyone knows that you should always be yourself. Unless you can be Batman, then be Batman.
*backdoor account access granted, Batman*
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Let's hope that someone has been recording the output for posterity; to hear the real story of a presidency for the first time since Nixon would be great...
I thought the government *wants* back doors in everything.
I'm confused now... Why would they have them removed?
It was my understanding that the US Government was in favor of putting security back-doors in everything? Are they just mad cuz it wasn't their backdoor?
-- Disclaimer: I can't really back up anything I post on
Hopefully, AMX will be buried by thousands of incoming lawsuits for this childish behavior. The article never mentions what this backdoor would actually let someone with access to it do, but I'm assuming that the possibility existed for someone to use that backdoor to obtain classified or proprietary information. That they tried to hide the backdoor once it was discovered rather than immediately patching it out is just another piece of evidence usable by anyone wishing to sue them. I can foresee a large-scale data audit in AMX's near future as any business owning their software tries to determine whether any of their information was taken, on purpose or inadvertently.
Nope, think of it like a Kwikset Smartkey deadbolt where you twist the faceplate, exposing a second lock cylinder.
This isn't a "debugging" tool.
I have personally seen "debug" access done properly:
1: The debug account is only accessible from a certain IP range.
2: The debug account is set to be inaccessible after a certain time.
3: The debug account uses a long passphrase.
4: The appliance website has an obvious note that the code is not for prime-time.
5: The debug account drops an entry into a log bucket.
6: When switching to a release build, the #ifdef macros ensure those accounts are never in the actual production software.
Basic common sense here. Any company can grok this, as it isn't any more complex than installing HID card readers on the office doors.
Don't hook up critical resources where sensitive information is discussed to the internet! Or the phone, or any other network with clear-text external connections.
Don't think of it as a back door. Think of it as a front door with really big locks.
I'd rather it had great knockers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTw1lzxTAis
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
You go from Marvel to DC and expect that to save you?
Should of gone something better maybe FatFreddy, CheechWizard or BettyVeronica.
Did the submitter even read the article?
The new account was not named "Batman". It was named "1MB@tMaN".
The government should really make this stuff in house.
No, because the people advocating for backdoors still magically think only they can use the backdoors, and don't understand the reality that a backdoor is open to anybody who knows about it.
Don't ever expect those people to understand how their wishes diverge from reality.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
In the photos from a conference room during the Bin Laden raid, you can clearly see some AMX equipment on the table. Scary to think that a backdoor was present in their conferencing system when a sensitive operation was taking place.
Someone with backdoor access could have seriously fucked up the whole operation.
> Do the backdoors have little backdoors in them?
A little door inside that back door? I suppose that would be a dog door.
But seriously, yes they do and that's the big concern. I've seen backdoors where the password was protected by unsalted MD5 hashing, which may have been reasonably secure when the code was written in 1996. Now, that can be cracked in less than 10 seconds, so I can access those backdoors. You could say the bad guys do indeed have a back door into the backdoor.
We could call it, perhaps, "The Cone of Silence."
E Proelio Veritas.
Enough said. Though I doubt this will convince anyone in politics that encryption backdoors are a bad idea, period.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
I'm an AMX programmer (and Crestron as well). I can tell you that A LOT of the time the A/V LAN is a completely separate system that isn't physically connected to the house network. But that is no excuse for leaving a backdoor. Of the two major competitors in commercial control (AMX and Crestron), AMX is usually considered the most secure. They put a high focus on security so that they can land these government jobs. Just to give you some background, Crestron controllers currently run embedded Windows and previously ran VxWorks. AMX controllers previously ran VxWorks and now run Embedded Linux. The AMX controllers have many levels of security including a DoD mode which shuts down most of the services (FTP, web, telnet and leaves SSH). Their proprietary communication between the panel and the controller (carried over port 1319 and registered) is also encrypted in secure mode (this generally carries button presses, text updates, levels, etc.). Sounds to me like the engineers didn't want to give up the backdoor account for service issues once it was discovered and likely didn't realize what a big mistake it was by the time it got passed down. I've met most of the people at AMX and they are very good guys and gals. It's an engineering driven company (not marketing driven). The Harman acquisition may change that to some extent but they are true geeks who I am sure realize they messed up. It's a small company (aside from the Harman parent) in a niche market. They will learn from this and move on.
Oh shit, someone managed to infiltrate us and install covert backdoor accounts in our products? What'll we do, the Government and Military will have a shit fit over this, we'll get all our contracts cancelled! We'll be ruined!
Calm down Fred, I've got it handled: We'll just tell them "Oh, those are just for our internal debugging, LOL, nothing to worry about!
..Yeah, you're right, Steve, no need to spook them, not like they're smart enough to know better, right? Guess my Porche payment will be on time this month after all!
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
"Wha, yeah!, c'mon, yeah, yeah, c'mon, yeah I'm a back door man, I'm a back door man The men don't know, but the little girl understand"
As a software engineer, you have debug builds and production builds, and as a general rule you don't ship builds to customers with the debug features enabled... unless you're beta testing. The White House probably wouldn't be my first choice for a beta test site!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Reciprocal transparency, that's all I ask for!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Actually, Eisenhower got us into Vietnam, although Kennedy and Johnson escalated it. Nixon does wrongly take most of the flack for Vietnam, although he _eventually_ ended the war, but not before tens of thousands more died.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
All animals are equal but some are more equal than others.
You can't handle the truth.
Arrest the corporate officers in charge of AMX for treason and put them in jail for 20 years. Then watch how quickly the rules for shipping software with "debug features" enabled change...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Personally I prefer a special recessed button to be pressed to go into debug mode, and for the display to indicate debug mode is active. Needs to be fully transparent... But how can you trust that it is?
I think no matter what political side your on. We should be appalled at Hillary Clinton's unprofessional use of a home server for her email. Now that we know some of that was highly classified material, it becomes a national security problem that is worse by far than what General Petraeus did. Maybe some are so relating to her as poor old grandma who did not know better, or some incredible addition to her that you would overlook her being a murderer if you had too. But this is a national security mess and it happens because of the idiots straight down from the top who are totally incompetent about security. The politicians probably will never admit it, but we have probably lost a lot of sensitive information and they are trying their best not to let the people know it. Hillary, absolutely does not have a clue, and should have never been Secretary of State and should not be president of a PTA let alone President of the USA. Hillary, go home and be a grandma and save us all a lot of grief.
Under the "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." rule. The government does it, so....
Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah,
nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah!
That's why. They're basically flipping them the bird.
BAT-MAN!
That's 'cause Bill's a Back Door Man.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
If I recall correctly, you come from a ex-Soviet Bloc country. Was that book available, read in school, digested, or?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Jack Kolesar: "I'm an AMX programmer (and Crestron as well). I can tell you that A LOT of the time the A/V LAN is a completely separate system that isn't physically connected to the house network. But that is no excuse for leaving a backdoor. ref
They didn't just leave a backdoor, they wilfully inserted one under instruction of the US spying apparatus. I do know that people are going to be very reluctant to use the product in the future.
Not before 1991. Worse than that, books censored just like everything else, many books and other materials were simply illegal to own.
You can't handle the truth.
These kind of backdoors have been around for a very long time. Remember "AWARD_SW", or "AMIBIOS"? Those passwords have opened so many BIOSes back in the day. It was helpful, until everybody started circulating lists. The manufacturers changed default passwords, but took a while for them to give up on those passwords entirely.
They help "lazy" operators and sysadmins, but they also help hackers as well.
Thank you for sharing. I have one further question, if you don't mind. What might the penalty be, say for someone who's traditionally a bit of a trouble maker but not a violent criminal nor trying to overthrow the country, to own a copy of The Animal Farm? Maybe a couple of questions - what might the penalty have been for distributing that work? Perhaps on a larger scale?
Sorry for my naive questions but I'm truly curious and I appreciate your knowledge, candor, and general ability to fill in details that one may have forgotten to ask. If, perhaps, you do not wish to be open about this then email is available. The email listed with this account is valid and checked on a regular bases. The concept of a book being prohibited isn't so foreign that I can't understand it but it is foreign enough that there are aspects that make me curious.
One example would be, would the book have been available (without being too specific, in order to protect yourself - if required) to those who wanted to read it bad enough? Were there clandestine printing presses? Black market shops? Underground lending libraries?
I know that some old Soviet Bloc countries had people who would literally fashion the computers out of not just parts but often out of handmade parts. I think that, at least by itself, is awesome.
Again, thank you for sharing. Your insight is valued and I truly appreciate any effort you make at helping me understand better. In my country, the United States of America or Canada (I'm a citizen of both countries) there are classified documents but if, for some reason, they ended up leaked then we'd certainly be free to publish them, read them, loan them, sell them, gift them, and do things like mark them up for context and greater understanding. Seriously, thanks for explaining. I, for one, truly appreciate it.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
It was part of the curriculum back in the mid-70's here. (BC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Why does the US Government want these backdoors removed? I thought they loved backdoors and wanted them installed on EVERYTHING? I mean, only good guys can use the backdoors, right? So what's the big deal?
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This is correct, I would venture that 90% of the systems I program for and have seen installed, have a local switch in the rack that interconnects the touch panels, processor, and a few other dedicated AV devices for the system. Their is nothing touching the clients network in these cases.