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

Posted by EditorDavid on from the serious-certification dept.

"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.

28 of 440 comments (clear)

  1. It just rolls off the tongue. by supernova87a · · Score: 4, Informative

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

  2. Not MS target demographic by JeffOwl · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Not MS target demographic by jhol13 · · Score: 3, Interesting

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

    2. Re:Not MS target demographic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Not MS target demographic by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:Not MS target demographic by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  3. Tied to Secure Boot... by ndykman · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Tied to Secure Boot... by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

  4. Gee thanks by JustAnotherOldGuy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
  5. Locking out open source hardware by mysidia · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Locking out open source hardware by rsmith-mac · · Score: 4, Informative

      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).

    2. Re:Locking out open source hardware by LichtSpektren · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

  6. Re: Worse and worse by backslashdot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

  7. Re:Worse and worse by x0ra · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Apple did the same with El Capitan...

  8. Re:Breaks TrueCrypt? by Z00L00K · · Score: 3, Informative

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

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  9. Re:How do I change a user's password by Gadget_Guy · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  10. Re: Worse and worse by Miamicanes · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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

  11. Re:you can also turn off secure boot by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What makes you think you still can come next patch?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  12. Re:some questions by ledow · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  13. This move does have some benefits by jonwil · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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)

  14. How to check by WaffleMonster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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)

  15. Re: Worse and worse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  16. This is a big deal, but not the Apocalypse by WalrusSlayer · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  17. Re: Worse and worse by jedidiah · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  18. Re: Worse and worse by jedidiah · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  19. Re:The technologically impaired by jedidiah · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...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.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  20. Re: Worse and worse by nmb3000 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    --
    "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
    /)
  21. Re: Worse and worse by Calydor · · Score: 4, Funny

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

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

    --
    -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-