Slashdot Mirror
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.
The NSA probably "persuaded" them to install it. The NSA spied on congress and nothing happened. Nobody was fired or went to jail. Spying on the whitehouse isn't that far a stretch.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
We could call it, perhaps, "The Cone of Silence."
E Proelio Veritas.
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.