All Windows 10 Kernel Mode Drivers Must Be Digitally Signed By Microsoft (i-programmer.info)

"Last year, we announced that beginning with the release of Windows 10, all new Windows 10 kernel mode drivers must be submitted to the Windows Hardware Developer Center Dashboard portal to be digitally signed by Microsoft," reads a MSDN blog post. "However, due to technical and ecosystem readiness issues, this was not enforced by Windows Code Integrity and remained only a policy statement. Starting with new installations of Windows 10, version 1607, the previously defined driver signing rules will be enforced by the Operating System, and Windows 10, version 1607 will not load any new kernel mode drivers which are not signed by the Dev Portal."

Slashdot reader mikejuk quotes a report from i-programmer.info which argues "the control of what software users can run on their machines is becoming ever tighter," and compares Microsoft's proposal to an XKCD cartoon: Before you start to panic about backward compatibility with existing drivers the lockdown is only going to be enforced on new installations of Windows 10. If you simply upgrade an existing system then the OS will take over the drivers that are already installed... Only new installations, i.e. installing all drivers from scratch, will enforce the new rules from Windows 10 version 1607... Be warned, if you need to do a fresh install of Windows 10 in the future you might find that your existing drivers are rejected.

Comments

It just rolls off the tongue.

[supernova87a]

You cannot imagine how excited I am to be submitting my drivers to the Windows Hardware Developer Center Dashboard portal. Talk about boner killer.

Re:It just rolls off the tongue.

[Joe_Dragon]

You have time for boners but not the time to do your TPS cover sheets?

Not MS target demographic

[JeffOwl]

For 97% of Windows 10 users (yes, I made that figure up) this is a total non-issue. It may even be a benefit to protect them from themselves. Many can't distinguish between safe and not so safe web sites from which to download programs and such. These folks may not even know how to uninstall drivers that don't uninstall automatically when a related piece of software is uninstalled. If you are a registered developer, this isn't an issue either as MS gives you a way around it.

For the rest of us, well, there aren't enough who haven't already migrated to iOS or Linux so MS doesn't give a shit.

Re:Not MS target demographic

[jhol13]

Actually I think this is a good thing as It forces device developers to make "driverless" devices.

Re:Not MS target demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

How is it beneficial to *any* users to remove the choice? Why not let the user decide if they want to run a driver that is not signed? It's not like the user is going to be asked every day. If you get a new device, you install the (presumably signed) driver from the CD or manufacturers website or MS website. If you want to run that super old piece of hardware, you can install the unsigned driver. Win-win.

Not really about safety. Mostly about control.

Re:Not MS target demographic

[Anonymous Coward]

Cost is an issue. And so is the difficulty for non-incorporated individuals, or contractors developing on behalf of a company, to deal with EV certificates. Don't take my word for it, take it from experts in developing NT drivers from the well known NTDEV list:

https://www.osronline.com/showthread.cfm?link=265064
https://www.osronline.com/showthread.cfm?link=268241
https://www.osronline.com/showthread.cfm?link=275593

But hey, I'm sure your snarky ass will dismiss anything anyway.

Re:Not MS target demographic

[Opportunist]

Same as I'll do with the rest of the hardware I make: Abuse some USB communications class and roll the logic into the hardware.

Re:Not MS target demographic

[Alumoi]

No amount of user education over the past few decades has stopped users making Brain dead choices.

Umm, we kinda knew that. Just look at the number of win10 installs.

Re:Not MS target demographic

[m76]

But you're only given that choice if you're big business. You can't go out and get a single windows license that allow you to run LTSB.

Re:Not MS target demographic

[AmiMoJo]

There is no need for hacks. There are two driver-free options available, with cross-OS compatibility.

You can use HID for low speed stuff. Max transfer rate is 64KB/sec, but that's plenty for many applications like sensors and (surprise surprise) human interfaces. If you want more you can use a custom WinUSB interface. All you have to do is add a couple of extra descriptors to your device that tell Windows to attach the WinUSB driver (and optionally what friendly name/icon to use). You can use any endpoint type with it, even composite devices. Naturally Linux just ignores these headers and you can talk to the device by the usual methods (e.g. libusb).

Abusing communication classes (CDC) doesn't work very well on Windows any more. As of Windows 10 you can't just supply a .inf file pointing to usbser.sys, it needs to be signed. You can get free signing keys (and they will still work even after this update, it only applies to code running in the kernel which in this case is usbser.sys which is signed by MS) but you still have to deal with the bugs in Microsoft's implementation.

Re:Not MS target demographic

[mcl630]

How is it beneficial to *any* users to remove the choice? Why not let the user decide if they want to run a driver that is not signed? It's not like the user is going to be asked every day. If you get a new device, you install the (presumably signed) driver from the CD or manufacturers website or MS website. If you want to run that super old piece of hardware, you can install the unsigned driver. Win-win.

Not really about safety. Mostly about control.

You still have a choice. From TFA:

Enforcement only happens on fresh installations, with Secure Boot on, and only applies to new kernel mode drivers:

• PCs upgrading from a release of Windows prior to Windows 10 Version 1607 will still permit installation of cross-signed drivers.
• PCs with Secure Boot OFF will still permit installation of cross-signed drivers.
• Drivers signed with cross-signing certificate issued prior to July 29th 2015, when the initial policy went into place, will continue to be allowed.
• To prevent systems from failing to boot properly, boot drivers will not be blocked, but they will be removed by the Program Compatibility Assistant. Future versions of Windows will block boot drivers.

To summarize, on non-upgraded fresh installations of Windows 10, version 1607 with Secure Boot ON, drivers must be signed by Microsoft or with cross-signed certificates issued prior to July 29th, 2015.

Tied to Secure Boot...

[ndykman]

Right now, if secured boot is off, this policy doesn't kick in. That may change of course. For the vast majority of Windows users, this is fine, but for power users, kind of a pain.

Re:Tied to Secure Boot...

[SuricouRaven]

One day they will decree that Secure Boot cannot be turned off. It would only be a continuation of an existing trend.

Re:Tied to Secure Boot...

[SuricouRaven]

Microsoft will use heavy-handed tactics - not on motherboard makers, but on OEMs. Probably starting with laptops. It wouldn't be anything new to them, they've used exactly the same technique to pressure OEMs in the past, including requiring them to include secure boot at all, and to have it enabled by default. It's a very simple technique: There are a list of requirements in order to purchase OEM Windows. As it's practically unthinkable to sell a laptop without Windows preinstalled (goodbuy, mass-market customers), all MS would need to do is make it a requirement that Secure Boot must be mandatory. For security, of course.

Linux with secure boot is a bit of a bodge. Microsoft has generously agreed to sign a first-stage loader that can in turn load GRUB, but they don't use the same key as they use for booting Windows - which is the one and only key you can be sure that all firmware will recognise. So you can boot linux on some SB-enabled mainboards/laptops, but not others, and there's no assurance that MS will continue to be so generous in future - they only did so now to avoid potential legal action.

Gee thanks

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Thanks for not even giving people the choice to run an unsigned driver, since there's lots and lots of hardware out there that will instantly be made 'obsolete' by this policy.

Re:Gee thanks

[phantomfive]

1) How MS was going to try to control the used game market (though they later backed off), I went for a PS4 instead of an XboxOne.

I like your overall post, but going with Sony instead of Microsoft? One of those will stab you in the back, the other in the front.

Re:Gee thanks

[AmiMoJo]

It's a trade off between security and supporting fairly old hardware. For most people this is a good decision, because it protects them from malware that uses kernel mode drivers. Such malware can be very hard to detect and get rid of. How is your AV scanner going to find the infected file when calls to the filesystem are intercepted and filtered, and the same with the list of running processes and loaded drivers?

It's pretty rare that I see hardware without a Microsoft signed driver these days anyway. Does anyone have anything that is affected by this and not easily/cheaply replaced?

Re:Gee thanks

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

It's obsolete from Microsoft's perspective.

I don't give a fuck what Microsoft thinks, the lack of an option to run an unsigned driver after a suitable warning is bullshit.

Thankfully I moved to Linux Mint some time ago, and it was heavy-handed horseshit like this from Microsoft that pushed me to abandon Windows entirely.

Locking out open source hardware

[mysidia]

Also, Submitting drivers to the Dev center now requires EV CODE SIGNING CERTIFICATE.
Even though Microsoft will sign the final result, you have to have an EV CERT from a small list of approved CAs to
sign your code before their portal will sign it per the new policy.

In case you have not noticed, the cheapest of the EV Certs is $1000 a Year; Only organizations can obtain these certificates, not individual developers.

Also, all EV Code signing certs require Smartcard/Token-Based Storage of your certificate's private key to ensure credentials cannot be shared, and you cannot automate the digital signing process.

Thus is a move to make sure Open Source software developers and individuals cannot produce Kernel mode drivers.

Re:Locking out open source hardware

[rsmith-mac]

Thus is a move to make sure Open Source software developers and individuals cannot produce Kernel mode drivers.

No. This is a move to further prevent kernel mode malware, because it turns out trusting developers wasn't good enough. That it impacts OSS is collateral damage - and something that can be dealt with, at that - as while OSS is popular here on Slashdot, it's not much more than a blip in the wider Windows world.

The whole reason we're even going this route is that trusting developer signed drivers has proven inadequate. Microsoft started requiring developer signatures (cross-signed) in Windows 7. This significantly cut down on driver based malware, but it didn't eliminate it entirely. It just raised the barrier to entry. Instead malware authors would just eat the cost and buy a certificate, or the especially crafty/evil ones would steal another vendor's keys, as we saw with the Realtek case. Either way Microsoft has had enough of it. and hence Windows 10 requires that they sign off on all drivers so that no one can just ship a (obviously) malware-infected driver.

I don't mean to be snarky/belittling here, but if you think that Microsoft is doing this as a strike against OSS, then you haven't been paying attention to the wider world. OSS on Windows certainly exists, but OSS projects that require kernel mode drivers are exceedingly few and far between. Which is not to say that OSS isn't a threat to MS to some degree, but that threat is from Linux, not OSS projects that require a kernel mode driver running under Windows. MS's prime concern is further reducing the ability of malware to hang out in the kernel space, as once malware makes it there it becomes virtually impossible to identify, contain, and remove.

And yes, this definitely makes signing harder for everyone. By all indications that's intentional, as EV Certs make it harder to hide (you have to provide more information) and are harder to steal/fraudulently use. There are ways to work with that for OSS though, just as was the case with Windows 7, so we'll be okay. As Bruce likes to say, security is a process; it takes more than just the OS vendor to keep Windows machines secure. So this is our contribution to that process (whether we like it or not).

Re:Locking out open source hardware

[AmiMoJo]

In case you have not noticed, the cheapest of the EV Certs is $1000 a Year

First hit on Google has them for $410/year, and obviously stuff signed doesn't expire after that time (only the ability to sign new stuff does).

Only organizations can obtain these certificates, not individual developers.

Incorrect. The developer of vJoy, for example, recently acquired one to sign his open source kernel mode driver. Did a little fund-raiser to get $475 (he used someone more expensive). He's just an individual, not a company.

Also, all EV Code signing certs require Smartcard/Token-Based Storage of your certificate's private key to ensure credentials cannot be shared, and you cannot automate the digital signing process.

Incorrect, you can configure Visual Studio to auto-sign your driver every time you build it using the USB device they supply included in the cost.

Re:Locking out open source hardware

[cdrudge]

In case you have not noticed, the cheapest of the EV Certs is $1000 a Year

Digicert has them for $224 for 1 year, or $165/year if you buy a 3 year cert. If you're serious about distributing a kernel mode driver, $165 shouldn't be too big of a hurdle to overcome even for a non-commercial organization.

Re:Locking out open source hardware

[LichtSpektren]

Thus is a move to make sure Open Source software developers and individuals cannot produce Kernel mode drivers.

The whole reason we're even going this route is that trusting developer signed drivers has proven inadequate. Microsoft started requiring developer signatures (cross-signed) in Windows 7. This significantly cut down on driver based malware, but it didn't eliminate it entirely.

Yes. You're exactly right. You're right because Microsoft themselves signed malware that would otherwise have been ineffectual.

Anybody who ascribes altruistic motives to this is simply wrong. It's about racketeering developers, not security.

Re: Worse and worse

[Anonymous Coward]

No. MS wants to "xbox" Windows. MS actually hates lusers. So, rather than teying to find a happy medium, where we lusers still feel like we have a modicum of control of our systems, no. MS wants to control it all, just like Xbox.

how much independent Xbox apps are there? I'll argue, none. MS could snuff Netflix. right now, Netflix attracts users, so it isn't in MS interests to hijack Nwtflix too bad on Xbox. But Netflix writes to MS' rules on Xbox. Comcast (aka Universal Studios...) as a content license owner could easily get MS to effectively reduce Netflix's app to oblivion once Comcast figures out a better business model with MS (that has enough sideband $$$ coming to MS, so that MS feels confident they can afford to "lose" to Netflix at some point in court...)

I guess I saw this starting to happen in the 90's. Stewart Allsop did too back then, too.
The scales are finally tipped in MS' favor to finally start doing it. We're more or less conditioned to it now: cell phones, the Apple way, Xbox, etc.
Windows 7 is/was the last freedom-enabled OS from Microsoft.

Re: Worse and worse

[backslashdot]

Actually I think they are in cahoots with the movie and music ownership industry. This move is all about enforcing DRM.

Intel and AMD want Microsoft to make the OS have CPU busting features .. Like I dunno 3D animated window management, voice control, fingerprint recognition etc.

But this driver move, it seems entirely dreamt up by the DRM crowd. The don't want you to play any video or music that may be similar looking or sounding to anything they own. I mean the browser industry sold out already. How come when ads play in a browser the player controls are limited?

Re:Worse and worse

[x0ra]

Apple did the same with El Capitan...

Don't be a WINEr

[raymorris]

> Any good WINE tutorials out there?

I'm sure there are; yet over 17 years on Linux I've used WINE roughly twice. Normally, its not the best solution.

Do you typically use emulation to run the Linux versions of most programs on Windows, or do you run the Windows version on Windows? Running the Windows version on Linux doesn't normally make sense - on Linux, run the Linux software.

A lot of daily use software brands are compiled for Linux, often developed for Linux FIRST, then ported to Windows. Firefox, Chrome, OpenOffice/LibreOffice, etc are all available native for Linux.

If the specific brand of softeware you used to use is Windows-only (and therefore probably proprietary), there is probably other open, free software that does the same job on Linux. Unlike the Windows software, the software designed for Linux doesn't include telemetry, onerous licensing, etc. For example, rather than MS Outlook, there are dozens of other email qnd groupware programs for Linux. Sylpheed Claws / Claws Mail is one.

The single software package most often mentioned as a counter-example is Photoshop. If you're a professional graphic artist, you'll probably be happiest with a Mac. If you want to adjust brightness and color curves of your snapshots, or do any simple to moderate photo editing, you can use one of the tools used by Dreamworks and ILM - Gimp. True, Gimp not exactly the same as Photoshop. However, Gimp is powerful enough to be used by major Hollywood effects studios.

Re:Worse and worse

[Anonymous Coward]

You are allowed to disable theirs though. It's two separate options afaik, but you can turn off both the protected filesystem and signed kext requirements.

Re:Breaks TrueCrypt?

[Z00L00K]

You should use Veracrypt instead, but your question still stands open.

Re:How do I change a user's password

[Gadget_Guy]

I'm using windows 10 and I cannot figure out how to change a user's password.

The Anonymous Cowards who responded to you have given you the correct answers. It should be noted that the method for administering other local accounts has not changed since Windows 2000. You still use Control Panel->User Accounts as you did back then, although the method of getting to the control panel has changed over time. In Windows 10 you right click on the start button and choose it from the pop up menu.

The command line version of "net user username NewPassword" has not changed at all since Windows NT 4.0 (19 years ago). Of course, if you are not used to Windows then it is quite reasonable that you wouldn't know the command to use, any more than a Windows admin would magically know to misspell the word password on Linux.

Re: Worse and worse

[Miamicanes]

I can't speak for the original Xbox, but the Xbox 360 has a pretty respectable library of indie third-party games that can be installed through Xbox Live. In fact, the third-party indie games on my 360 outnumber the retail-boxed games about 3 to 1.

Unholy Heights is a riot.

http://xbox.com/indiegames

Re:you can also turn off secure boot

[Opportunist]

What makes you think you still can come next patch?

Re:some questions

[ledow]

1) Unlikely. I've seen lots of WHQL drivers that just crash-and-burn but more likely they are "stable" but atrociously useless. Because of the faffing and back-and-forth on them, lots of simple devices (e.g. printers etc.) get one WHQL driver and then just release unofficial ones for everything else. If you're lucky and it's a big printer, they might update the WHQL one every year or so. With ten other releases between.

2) No. They won't know what's going on and things will just stop working. They won't be able to update drivers when suggested and will still have all the problems that they have now. And everything cheap they buy on Amazon just won't work, it's as simple as that.

Complaining is easy

[bickerdyke]

While the posters here are correct (at large) please don't forget that at the same time, MS has always been urged to close malware attack vectors. So, as Master Yoda would put it: Do or do not. There is no "/. won't complain".

Is this news?

[allo]

I thought you need signed drivers at least since windows 7 and this is one of the reasons why for example andlinux isn't available anymore?

Re:As a user of old equipment, this terrifies me

[SuperDre]

Funny, as that's also my experience with my own windows.. But I had to reinstall Ubuntu a couple of times after an upgrade (so the upgrade fubarred it, so I just reinstalled the new version) to get my development enviroment working again..

Re:some questions

[donaldm]

"But I need Windows for..." *SMACK!* NO! You don't!

LOL! You should typeset it. The Gimp works really well, although most popular Live distros have it by default.

But I still like this one for anime fans and this one for dog lovers . :-)

Paper trail?

[sshir]

So the next time Kaspersky finds a properly signed rogue driver we would know that the hardware vendor was cooperating. Would it create a liability?

Re:As a user of old equipment, this terrifies me

[Megol]

I reinstall Windows as often as I do Linux. No, thinking about it in fact I reinstall Linux more often.

This move does have some benefits

[jonwil]

I am not a fan of the fact that you need to spend big money on an expensive certificate, more money on setting up a legal entity that will satisfy those organizations who can issue the right EV code signing certificate that Microsoft will accept and even more money on all the required hardware to actually test your driver or what it means for open source software but this move DOES have some benefits.

It reduces the amount of crappy drivers out there (both because of the testing and because entities who are making crappy drivers tend to be the ones who dont want to spend the money on certificating and signing).

It also makes it harder for anyone wanting to create kernel level malware since either Microsoft will refuse to sign it in the first place or Microsoft will revoke the signature (and blacklist the creator of those drivers).

The increased requirements in terms of the code signing certificate you need to submit drivers to Microsoft also eliminates problems with rogue code signing certificates (i.e. all the times when a code signing certificate was stolen from a major hardware vendor and used to sign malware or other bad things)

I do wonder what this means for government/law enforcement/intelligence agencies though. We know from various leaks and other things that governments and their agencies have used kernel drivers (or things that can only be done with kernel drivers even if its not actually explicit that kernel drivers are being used) as part of their spying/hacking/law enforcement efforts. Will the NSA be given the ability to sign a kernel driver that can run on a standard Windows 10 install? What about the Chinese Government (the censor-ware they wanted to force PC manufacturers to install on new PCs almost certainly requires kernel-level code to do the things it does). Or the German Bundespolizei? (the spyware they have reportedly used to spy on things like Skype may well need kernel code in order to do its job)

How to check

[WaffleMonster]

You can run sigverif from CLI to check to see what drivers are currently being used on your system not signed by Microsoft.

I welcome any legitimate reason for this behavior requiring Microsoft cross signing when secure boot is enabled. Currently I'm at a loss to come up with one.

It seems when secure boot is not enabled all signature validation can be bypassed by malicious code one way or another if you have admin rights by changing boot settings using bcdedit and rebooting or a million other approaches given admin level access. Signature checks don't have much bite in the real world with secure boot disabled.

With secure boot enabled any effective bypass of driver signature validation is a security bug. Since only kernels trusted databases are used for driver signature validation (regardless of secure boot setting) cross signing to MS is redundant. This is especially true given the blessings seem to be superficial at best and probably nearly fully automated given cross signing does not currently cost money.

Most likely reason for MS to do this I've been able to come up with is that without MS control anyone who develops a kernel driver and gets it signed by one of the supported CAs can break out of a Microsoft walled garden on systems where secure boot is being enforced against the user.

Even if you believe any and all measures to lock down kernel access improves security and therefore unconditionally good regardless of any other considerations... I still fail to see how any actual locking downing is being accomplished here as the MS blessing is superficial and adds nothing. Any malicious actor able to develop a kernel driver and obtain an EV cert is almost certain to also obtain blessing of Microsoft.

The only "benefit" seems to be MS getting a vote to stop execution of drivers paving way for restricting usermode execution against users. (See Windows RT and Windows Phone)

The sky does not seem to be falling

[Mascot]

From Microsoft's FAQ: "Enforcement only happens on fresh installations, with Secure Boot on, and only applies to new kernel mode drivers"

In other words, disable secure boot and it's business as usual.

From my point of view, this increases security for the vast majority of users who just buy a computer in a store and need to be protected from themselves. If you don't know enough to disable secure boot, you probably have no business installing unsigned kernel mode drivers anyway. But if you do, you can.

Re: Worse and worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, you know, it's to prevent viruses and other such garbage that has plagued windows for years and years, to be able to boot up with windows by masquerading as a driver?
I see nothing wrong with this. If anything it will force manufacturers to get their sh*t together and stop releasing buggy half baked drivers.

Re:Breaks TrueCrypt?

[LichtSpektren]

For God's sake, read the article you quoted! The vulnerability is an escalation privilege attack, i.e. somebody could get arbitrary admin rights on a computer with TrueCrypt installed. For 99% of computers, if an evildoer has already breached to that point, there's a million other horrible things they could do. The vulnerability DOES NOT, I repeat, DOES NOT endanger any encrypted files.

This is a big deal, but not the Apocalypse

[WalrusSlayer]

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/windows_hardware_certification/2016/07/26/driver-signing-changes-in-windows-10-version-1607

Trust me, as a driver developer, this has been causing me an immense amount of headaches, and Windows 10 is only part of the story.

But the blog entry has a key detail which nobody here seems to understand. Existing Drivers signed by a certificate that was issued prior to July 2015 will still be accepted by the kernel. What this means is that the new rollout is not going to cause the entire ecosystem of Windows legacy drivers to implode. If they were signed correctly for 64-bit Windows before, they will continue to work on Windows 10. Really, truly, I've tested this myself on preview editions of the Windows 10 AE

Where you get screwed is when a vendor needs to update a driver going forward. Then things get to be hairy. Logistically, signing became much harder, everything from obtaining a certificate to performing the actual signing. Pain. In. The. Ass.

Our company just released an update of our product just under the wire of when our legacy "get's a free pass" certificate expired so that we'd have some runway to incorporate the new driver signing nightmare into our tool chain. So we're good up until the next showstopper bug comes along, which fortunately is rare. You'll be able to use our latest release just fine on AE, even though it didn't get signed by Microsoft.

Re: Worse and worse

[RavenLrD20k]

Did you check that link before you posted it? I'm getting page not found errors on it. (kind of ironic)

Re: Worse and worse

[Lonewolf666]

Sounds plausible to me, but to answer GP:
I don't think Intel and AMD have anything to do with this, as it is a move by Microsoft to demand signing of Windows drivers. CPU design is not really involved here, although the goals of this move may have some overlap with the goals of introducing TPM.

Also, both Intel and AMD have so far been reasonably supportive of Linux development, which suggests they are not trying to help Microsoft control all PC hardware.

This said, people who have an interest in tinkering with their OS should probably switch to Linux or BSD entirely instead of trying to somehow keep Windows from locking them out.

Re: Worse and worse

[Anonymous Coward]

As an owner of a computer service company who works on everything from residential to multinational corporation computers, I can say that I have not run into driver based kernel space malware more than a couple of times since I started my company in 2001.

This will not prevent hardware makers from releasing buggy drivers. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with the quality of the driver.

This is simply a means to force consumers to purchase NEW hardware to replace their old reliable still working fine piece of hardware because there is no longer a driver for it. It is simply a way for MS and their partner hardware manufacturing companies to separate consumers from their money.

Re: Worse and worse

[ArmoredDragon]

I really doubt that's it. The next version of Windows 10 includes a provision to kill off the ability to disable certain "features" (or more specifically, annoyances) and it would make sense if they want to enforce that, and things like telemetry, by banning CA signed drivers.

Re: Worse and worse

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a complete non-issue for anyone that actually needs to run unsigned drivers.

Hobbyist developer: Disable the setting in your machine, unsigned drivers work fine.
Business with obscure/legacy hardware: Generate your own signing key pair, sign the driver yourself then push your public key to all users machines by GPO.
Real driver dev: Generate local signing keys for test, get key from MS and apply to WHQL for release.

This is a security setting that is on by default, but easily disabled or worked around by anyone with the knowledge to safely do so.

Re: Worse and worse

[Cajun Hell]

No. If that were the goal, then it would merely require that drivers be signed by the machine's admin or whatever parties they have signed as delegates, not such a distant third party as Microsoft.

Re: Worse and worse

[jedidiah]

Drivers as a source of viruses? Talk about unreasonable. The fact that Microsoft's is Hollywood's BITCH is far more plausible.

Re: Worse and worse

[jedidiah]

Just who are you trying to kid? Do you know who you're talking to? A rootkit doesn't need anything quite that low level.

This entire approach to the "problem" is like putting a band-aid on a bullet wound after the victim has already been shot full of holes. He never should have gotten shot to begin with.

Re:The technologically impaired

[jedidiah]

...and all of that is unadulterated bullshit. The underlying operating system is FAR more dangerous because it's a piece of shit engineered to spy on the user. It's always been a piece of shit because Microsoft always puts marketing and other "business" objectives ahead of the product (far ahead). They only reason anyone uses their virus infested product is because they managed to corner the market in the days of MS-DOS.

The fact that the OS is swiss cheese is far more of a problem than "the user making the wrong choice".

If you're gotten to the point of showing such obvious contempt for the end user then you're doing it wrong.

Re: Worse and worse

[nmb3000]

Or, you know, it's to prevent viruses and other such garbage that has plagued windows for years and years, to be able to boot up with windows by masquerading as a driver?

Actually the GP is right, and Microsoft calls it out themselves:

To play back certain types of next-generation premium content, all kernel-mode components in Windows Vista and later versions of Windows must be signed. In addition, all the user-mode and kernel-mode components in the Protected Media Path (PMP) must comply with PMP signing policy.

Besides, the only way to install kernel mode drivers is to be running as administrator. If malicious code is allowed to run on your computer with administrative credentials, you're already screwed in any number of ways. Installation of a kernel driver is just one avenue.

I see nothing wrong with this.

I see everything wrong with this. Microsoft is now dictating what software can be run on my computer. That alone is enough of a reason to vehemently reject this, but think also of the F/OSS software impacted. There are plenty of software tools out there which run a driver as part of their operation and not all of these will want to or be able to get their drivers signed.

I have been trying to decide lately if I'll ever bite the bullet and move from Windows 7 to Windows 10, or if I'll start looking migrating to Linux. The decision just got a lot easier.

Re: Worse and worse

[Calydor]

That's a really nice [graphics|printer|pointer|raid] driver you've got there.

Would be a shame if something ... happened to it.

Re: Worse and worse

[TemporalBeing]

I was talking to an anonymous coward. Most rootkits I've dealt with intercept file-system calls to hide the files and the signature of the modified file. That requires kernel-level access. And they've usually been a modified ntfs.sys - tell me that's not kernel-mode. Sometimes kbd.sys.

FYI - you don't need Kernel-level drivers to do that. It helps but it's not necessary; there's enough hooks into the kernel from user-space it can be done in userspace without issue.