-
35C3 preroll music
-
Herald angel: OK so our next talk is given
by Frederic Vachon, so please give him a
-
warm round of applause.
Applause
-
Vachon: Okay so hello everyone. Thank you
for having me today. I'm really happy to
-
be to be here. So today I'm going to talk
about a research that a colleague of mine,
-
Jean-Ian Boutin and I did earlier this
year and which led us to the discovery of
-
a UEFI rootkit. So very quickly. My name
is Frederic Vachon, I'm a malware
-
researcher at ESET and I've been working
there for the last two years and for the
-
last year or so I've been really focusing
on boot level threats and UEFI firmware
-
reverse engineering. So let's look at the
agenda for this talk. So the first thing I
-
want to talk about is what is Sednit very
quickly. Then I'll talk about LoJack,
-
which is an anti-theft software and past
research related to this software and the
-
reason for that is that the UEFI rootkit
that I'll talk about really mimics the
-
architecture of this legitimate software.
Then we'll move on and I'll talk a little
-
bit about compromised LoJack agents that
were found in the wild, and finally I'll
-
jump into the UEFI rootkit, well, where
I'll talk about the tools around the
-
rootkit and the UEFI rootkit itself. So,
Sednit. Sednit is an espionage group
-
active since the early 2000s and it is
also known as Fancy Bear, APT28 and
-
STRONTIUM, so maybe you know this group by
one of these alternative names. And Sednit
-
is the name basically that we use at ESET.
So this group was very visible in the past
-
few years as being allegedly behind some
pretty mysterious hacks like the hack
-
against the Democratic National Committee,
the DNC, where some emails were leaked
-
online. The hack against the World Anti-
Doping Agency as well as the hack against
-
the French broadcasting network TV5 Monde.
But at ESET when we're talking about
-
Sednit, we're really talking about the
tools and the different campaigns that
-
were led using these tools, and we're not
talking about the people who are operating
-
this malware because we don't have the
information necessary to draw such
-
conclusions. However, in July 2018 the
U.S. Department of Justice named the group
-
as being responsible for the Democratic
National Committee hack in this specific
-
indictment. And what's interesting is that
the tools that we analyzed were... are
-
named in this specific indictment and they
also mention who's the authors of these
-
malware. And also early, not earlier, but
closer from from now, in October 2018, the
-
Department of Justice issued another
indictment naming pretty much the same
-
people are related to the World Anti-
Doping Agency hack. And the way that
-
Sednit will usually infect their targets
is by sending phishing emails, so
-
sometimes they will contain malicious
links and some of the time malicious
-
attachments. OK. So now let's talk a
little bit about LoJack. So Lojack is an
-
anti-theft software as I mentioned, and it
was previously known as Computrace. So
-
maybe you know the solution by this name
instead. And it is made by Absolute
-
Software. So, yeah, and this solution is
built in many laptops. But an anti-theft
-
software needs to be as persistent as
possible if you want it to be reliable. It
-
needs to be... to survive an operating
system re-install or a hard disk
-
replacement. So to achieve this what
Absolute Software did is that they added a
-
module in the UEFI BIOS itself. Yeah and
the solution needs to be activated in the
-
BIOS setup. So with a persistence
mechanism like that coming from the
-
firmware, it's really attracted the
attention of security researchers, who
-
looked into this to find vulnerabilities
basically. And at BlackHat in 2009 there
-
was a talk there where the architecture of
the solution was described and several
-
design vulnerabilities in the agent were
also described there. So let's look at the
-
architecture of LoJack back then. So the
first thing that we have here is a module
-
in the UEFI BIOS, and this module will
write a file to the Windows partition. So
-
this file is called autochk.exe, which
replaces the legitimate autochk.exe, whose
-
job is to perform filesystem integrity
check during early Windows boot. So by
-
replacing this agent during early Windows
boot it will be executed. And from there
-
it will drop rpcnetp.exe, which is the
small agent, and will install a service
-
and when Windows will run it will run this
service, and rpcnetp will be launched at
-
this point. And it will inject itself into
svchost , and then from there it will
-
inject itself into Internet Explorer which
is pretty interesting because it's very
-
shady and that's something that we see
pretty much all the time in malware but
-
not often in legitimate software. And from
Internet Explorer it will then communicate
-
with the command and control server and it
will download the full recovery agent. So
-
now let's look at some of the issues that
the researchers found with this... in this
-
solution. So one of the vulnerabilities
they found is very interesting for us and
-
in fact that's really the only one that
matters for this talk. And this is a
-
configuration file vulnerability. So the
configuration is embedded into rpcnetp.exe
-
and it is encrypted but it is encrypted
with a very weak algorithm. So it is in
-
single byte XOR key, and it is not
authenticated whatsoever. And what's in
-
this configuration file? Well, that's
where you can find the server, the command
-
and control server. So an attacker can
just change this configuration to point to
-
its own attacker-controlled server. So we
knew that this vulnerability existed for a
-
while, it was back in 2009, but we had no
evidence of it being used in the wild.
-
Until earlier this year, when Arbor
Networks published a blog post where they
-
described some modified small agent with
modified configuration where the domains
-
that were embedded in this configuration
were linked to old Sednit domains. So
-
let's go back to LoJack architecture and
look at where this attack took place. So
-
it took place at this level here. So from
there we did some detection for this
-
malware and it was... and we hunted to
gather as much samples as as we could. And
-
it was fairly simple because they always
modified the same exact version of the
-
agent and they modified, so that's what we
can see here, so they modified the command
-
and control server. And here we see the
encrypted version of course. So by looking
-
at this we will look at ESET's telemetry
and found out that there was a few
-
organizations that were hit mostly in the
Balkans, in Central Europe as well as in
-
Eastern Europe. These were military and
diplomatic organizations. And what's
-
interesting is that we also found other
Sednit tools in the same organization. So
-
at this point we wondered how this malware
got there, but since there was other
-
backdoors of Sednit in the organization we
thought it might be the infection vector,
-
but by digging a little bit deeper we
found another interesting component. And
-
if we go back to the LoJack architecture,
the component that we found is at this
-
step here. So at this step in the LoJack
architecture it's autochk.exe that lives
-
there. But what we found is another file
called autoche.exe instead of autochk. And
-
it does pretty much the same thing. So it
also installs a service and it also drops
-
rpcnetp.exe. But it is the rpcnetp version
that has a modified server in it. So
-
Sednit domain basically. And we continue
to look at what we can find in this
-
organization and we found another tool
which is called info_efi.exe, and that
-
allows to drop... to dump a lot of
information about very low level settings
-
of the machine. And this tool uses Read
Write Everything's driver. And
-
Read Write Everything is a software that allows you
to manipulate very low level setting of
-
your machine. So using this tool you can
read and write to PCI configuration
-
register, to memory-mapped IOs, to IO port
space and you can also access physical
-
memory and this tool uses a kernel driver
of course - if you want to do those things
-
you need a kernel driver. And this kernel
driver is properly signed so that you can
-
push it on even a recent version of
Windows. And so yeah, that's the driver
-
that was used by info_efi here. And by
Googling a little bit around what we found
-
out is that this specific driver was used
in the past by security researchers to
-
exploit vulnerabilities at the firmware
level. So, yeah, the last thing that was
-
missing here to mimic the whole LoJack
solution was a UEFI BIOS module. So at
-
this point we wondered, did they get
there. So, because of the tool dumping
-
information about the BIOS that I just
spoke about, we were pretty confident that
-
something more was happening there. And by
digging a little bit deeper, we found
-
other tools that strengthen our
suspicions. So the first tool is called
-
ReWriter_read. And it is a tool used to
dump the content of the SPI flash memory,
-
and it also uses Read Write Everything's driver and
it uses these specific IO control codes.
-
So it allows it to read and write to
memory-mapped IO space as well as read and
-
write to PCI configuration registers.
What's interesting for us as reverse
-
engineer is that this tool contains a lot
of debug strings which really made our job
-
easier. And it consists of the following
operations. So the first thing it will do
-
is that it will log information on the
BIOS_CNTL register and we'll talk a lot of
-
detail about this register just a little bit later
in this talk. Then it locates the BIOS
-
region base address. And finally it reads
the UEFI firmware content and dump it to a
-
file. So another tool that we found is
really complementary to the tool to
-
ReWriter_read and it is called
ReWriter_binary. So it also contains a lot
-
of debug strings. It also uses
RWEverything's driver. And now the UEFI
-
firmware is dumped into memory, the next
step is to add the rootkit to the firmware
-
and to write it back to the SPI flash
memory and that's exactly what this tool
-
does. Okay. So now let's talk about the
patching of the UEFI firmware. But before
-
we dig into the subjects there are a
couple things that I wanted to introduce
-
here just to make sure that we're on the
same page. So the first thing I want to
-
talk about is UEFI and UEFI stands for
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface and
-
it is a standardized specification that
defines the interface that exists between
-
the operating system and the firmware. And
it's kind of a replacement for the legacy
-
BIOS. So, a UEFI compliant firmware will
provide a set of services to UEFI
-
applications and here read the operating
system loader. There are other UEFI
-
applications, but usually it's the
operating system loader that runs. So the
-
first set of services is called the boot
services and these are services that are
-
available during the firmware lifetime but
once the operating system is loaded, these
-
services are not available anymore and
there are the runtime services that are
-
also available during firmware lifetime.
But once the operating system is loaded
-
they are still available, so that a kernel
driver for instance can make call in these
-
services. An example of these services
allows the operating system to read and
-
write to UEFI variables. And what's
interesting with UEFI is that there is no
-
more master boot record and volume boot
record involved in the boot process
-
meaning that there is no easy way to
hijack the early boot control flow. So the
-
second thing I want to introduce here are
the driver execution environment drivers -
-
so the DXE drivers. So DXE drivers are
PE/COFF images meaning that they are
-
basically Windows executables, and they
are kind of the core of UEFI firmware so
-
that they can do many things, some of them
will be used to abstract the hardware.
-
Some of them will be used to produce the
UEFI standard interface, so the boot
-
services and the runtime services, and
they can also be used by firmware vendors
-
or OEMs to extend the firmware by
registering new services - the so-called
-
protocols in the UEFI specification. And,
the DXE drivers are loaded during the DXE
-
phase of the platform initialization and
they are loaded by the DXE dispatcher that
-
will also be referred to as the DXE Core.
The last thing that I'm going to do: I
-
want to introduce for now is the UEFI
firmware layout - so the UEFI firmware
-
is located in the BIOS region of the SPI
flash memory. And this region will contain
-
multiple volume. But let's look at it with
a little bit more detail in this tool here
-
which is UEFI tool, that is an open source
software that allows you to manipulate
-
UEFI firmware images. So here I loaded the
typical content of SPI flash memory dump
-
in this tool and let's look at what we
have. So, the first thing that we see here
-
is the descriptor region, so it contains...
this region contains metadata about how
-
the remaining data in the SPI flash memory
is laid out. The second region that we
-
find here is the ME region which contains
the Intel Management Engine firmware. And
-
finally we have the BIOS region which is
really the main interest... the main thing
-
that we want to look at today. So the BIOS
region contains multiple volumes. So let's
-
look at one volume in a little bit more
detail. So here we have a volume of type
-
firmware filesystem version 2 and this
volume contains multiple files and these
-
files are identified by GUIDs. So that's
what we can see under the name column
-
here. And a file doesn't contain directly
the UEFI executable, but it is composed of
-
multiple sections and one of these section
is the actual UEFI executable, but there
-
are other section and in this case we see
a DXE dependency section that allows to
-
define dependencies for this specific UEFI
image and we also see a version section
-
and a user interface section which allows
to give us a human readable name for this
-
file instead of the GUID which is very
pretty difficult to remember for humans.
-
OK, so now that we have all this in mind
let's go back to ReWriter_binary. So what
-
ReWriter_binary will do is that it will
parse all of the firmware volumes that it
-
can find looking for 4 specific files. So
it looks for Ip4Dxe, NtfsDxe, SmiFlash,
-
and the DXE Core. So why does it look for
Ip4Dxe and the DXE Core? Well these files
-
are looked for to find the firmware volume
where to install the UEFI rootkit. So
-
usually in UEFI firmwares all of the DXE
drivers all in the same volume, so when
-
the tool will parse... will find in fact
Ip4Dxe, it will know it is currently
-
parsing the volume with all of the DXE
drivers in it and it will keep it as a
-
candidate for the UEFI rootkit
installation. And it looks for the DXE
-
Core basically for the same reason, but
sometimes the DXE Core is in a different
-
volume, so when it will find it, it will
keep the volume as another candidate for
-
the UEFI rootkit installation and the
chosen volume will be the one with enough
-
free space available in it. Now, NtfsDxe.
So NtfsDxe is the American Megatron Inc.
-
NTFS driver and if the tool finds it, it
will remove it, and the reason for that is
-
that the UEFI rootkit embeds its own NTFS
driver, so to avoid any conflict with
-
another NTFS driver it just removes it.
And now SmiFlash, so, SmiFlash is looked
-
for... and, you know, the tool will... if
the tool finds it, it will keep some
-
metadata about it in the structure, but in
the version of the tool that we analyzed
-
it's not used anywhere. But interestingly,
SmiFlash is a known vulnerable DXE driver.
-
So what we believe is that Sednit might
have been fiddling in another version of
-
the tool with some exploit for this driver
in order to be able to bypass write
-
protection mechanisms to the BIOS region
of the SPI flash memory. So now that it
-
has found the volume where to install the
rootkit, it will add the rootkit, right.
-
So the first thing it does, it will create
a firmware file system file header, then
-
it will append the rootkit file, which is
a compressed section that contains two
-
other sections, one of one of these is the
actual UEFI rootkit image and the other
-
one is a user interface section defining
the name for this rootkit which is SecDXE,
-
as in security DXE. And then it will take
this blob of data and write it at the end
-
of the firmware volume that was chosen.
-
So now that the UEFI rootkit is inside the
-
firmware into memory, the next step is to
write it back to the SPI flash memory. And
-
once again there's a couple of things that
I want to introduce here. So I want to
-
talk about BIOS write protection
mechanisms. So the chipset exposes write
-
protection mechanisms that need to be
properly configured by the firmware. So
-
there are no such thing as, you know, BIOS
write particular mechanism enabled by
-
default. It's really the job of the
firmware to do that. And today will only
-
cover relevant protections to our
research. So only the protection mechanism
-
that are looked for by
REWriter_binary. And yeah the protection
-
we'll talk about are exposed via the BIOS
control register that we've seen a little
-
bit earlier in this talk. So, if you're a
kernel driver and you want to write to be
-
BIOS region of the SPI flash memory, what
you need to do first is you need to set
-
the BIOS Write Enable field of the BIOS
control register to 1 and then you're able
-
to write to the SPI flash memory. But of
course you don't want any kernel driver to
-
be able to modify your UEFI firmware and
potentially brick your machine. So there's
-
a protection mechanism there which is
another field in the BIOS control register
-
and this field is called BIOS lock enable
and it allows to lock BIOS Writer Enable to
-
0. And this field is readable in WLO. WLO
means write lock once. And what it means
-
is that once the firmware has set this bit
there's no other way to set it back to 0
-
than performing a full platform reset.
-
But there's a problem here, and it lies in the
-
fact that BIOS lock enable implementation
is vulnerable. So how it works is that
-
when BIOS write enable is set to 1, it's
value will actually change in the BIOS
-
control register for a small amount of
time. And then the platform will issue a
-
system management interrupt and the SMI
handler will set BIOS write enable back to
-
0. But, yeah, the firmware must implement
this SMI, otherwise this mechanism is
-
totally useless. But maybe you've guessed
it. But what happens if we write to the
-
SPI flash memory before the SMI handler
sets BIOS write enable back to 0? So there
-
is a race condition vulnerability here.
And there is a paper about it which is
-
called "speed racer". And to exploit this
what you need to do is, you need one
-
thread that continuously sets BIOS write
enable to 1, while another thread tries to
-
write the data to the SPI flash memory.
And according to this paper it works on
-
multicore processors as well as on single
core processors with hyper-threading
-
enabled. So Intel came up with a fix for
this issue and was introduced in the
-
platform controller hub family of Intel
chipsets around 2008. And what they did
-
is, that they added a field in the BIOS
control register. And this field is called
-
SMM BIOS write protect disable. And the
name is a little bit misleading, but if
-
you remove disable, that's actually what
it does. And if this mechanism is
-
activated, there will be no other way to
write to the SPI, to the BIOS region of
-
the SPI flash memory, than if you don't
have all of the cores of your processor
-
running into SMM, meaning that the job of
writing to the SPI flash memory is now only
-
available to system management mode. And
once again the firmware must set this bit.
-
Otherwise this mechanism is not activated,
right. Okay so let's go back to
-
ReWriter_Binary. So of course if I talk
about all of these mechanisms it's because
-
ReWriter_Binary checks for them. So it
will check if the platform is properly
-
configured and it implements the exploit
for the race condition that I just spoke
-
about. So let's look at the writing
process decision tree. So the first thing
-
that it will look for is if BIOS write
enable is set, and if BIOS write enable is
-
set there, then there's nothing stopping
it from writing the UEFI image. But if it
-
is not set, then it will check "Oh, is
BIOS lock enable activated?". And this, if
-
this mechanism is not activated then it
will just flip BIOS write enable to 1, and
-
then it will write the UEFI image. But if
it is activated, the last thing it will
-
check for is "Is SMM BIOS write protect
set?". And if it is not set, then it will
-
exploit the race condition that we spoke
about. And if it is set, then the tool
-
will just fail. So the tool only works if
the platform is misconfigured. And we
-
spoke about SmiFlash, the vulnerable DXE
driver. So yeah, what we think is that by
-
being able to exploit this vulnerability,
they would have been able to have a tool
-
that works even when the platform is
properly configured. So it's a very good
-
example of; I mean if firmware vendors
would have done their job correctly here,
-
this tool would have failed at flashing
the UEFI firmware, so that's a great
-
example of how, you know, firmware
security is. So here let's just take a
-
step back and look at what we have. So
what we have is a software implementation
-
to flash the firmware remotely post
exploitation, meaning that as an attacker
-
I can, you know, infect my target the way
I usually do - let's say by sending a
-
phishing email. And once I have a foothold
in the machine, I can use this tool to
-
deploy the UEFI rootkit. And one we knew
about in the past was Hacking Team's UEFI
-
rootkit and it needed physical access to
be deployed. So it's so much more
-
convenient to be able to do it remotely.
And let's note here that there is no proof
-
of Hacking Team's rootkit being used in an
actual cyber attack. It has never been
-
found on a victim's machine or at least if
it had, it hasn't been publicly disclosed.
-
So what we did at this point is that we
extracted the UEFI rootkit from the tool
-
and we looked at ESET's UEFI scanner
telemetry to see if we can find something.
-
Turns out that we found the UEFI rootkit
in the SPI flash memory of a victim's
-
machine, making it the first publicly
known UEFI rootkit to be used in an actual
-
cyber attack. Okay.
-
So now let's look at the UEFI
rootkit itself. So the UEFI
-
rootkit is a DXE driver. So it is loaded
by the DXE dispatcher every time that the
-
machine will boot. Its file name is SecDxe
as we've seen earlier and here's the file
-
GUID for future reference. So let's look
at the UEFI rootkit workflow. So UEFI
-
firmware we'll go through multiple phases
when it boots. The first phase is the
-
security phase, the second one is the pre
EFI initialization phase, and then there
-
is the driver execution environment phase
and that's where it begins to be
-
interesting for this rootkit. So that's
where the DXE dispatcher lives. So that's
-
when all of the DXE drivers will be
loaded. So at some point the UEFI rootkit
-
will be loaded. And what will happen is
that the rootkit will create an event
-
attached to EFI GROUP_READY_TO_BOOT. And
it will bind a notify function to this
-
event. So in the next phase, when the boot
manager will run, at some point it will
-
signal this event and the notify function
will be called. So, the notify function
-
does 3 things. The first thing is that it
will install an NTFS driver. Then it will
-
drop autoche.exe and rpcnetp.exe using
this NTFS driver. And finally it will
-
patch a value in the Windows Registry. So,
the NTFS driver is needed to get file
-
based access to Windows partition and
Sednit's operator did not write their own
-
NTFS driver. What did it is that they use
Hacking Team's NTFS driver from Hacking
-
Team's leak. And, yeah, so here's the code
responsible for dropping the files. So as
-
we can see here, it is dropping
rpcnetp.exe and here it is dropping
-
autoche.exe. And the last step is to patch
the Windows Registry. So how it does that
-
is that it will open the file backing the
HKLM\SYSTEM Registry hive and it doesn't
-
have all the logic to parse Windows
Registry structures, so it will only look
-
for a textual pattern and the textual
pattern it will look for is "autocheck
-
autochk " and it will change it to
"autocheck autoche " and it happens to be
-
modifying the BootExecute key. So, the
BootExecute key is the key responsible for
-
launching autochk.exe during Windows early
boot. So by modifying it to autoche
-
instead of autochk that's autoche.exe that
will be executed instead of autochk. And,
-
so here if we go back to the UEFI rootkit
workflow, when the operating system will
-
run, then it will execute autoche.exe.
Then autoche.exe will drop the small
-
agent, the rpcnetp.exe, and so on. But
what's interesting here is that it will
-
revert back the modification in the
Windows Registry from autoche to autochk.
-
So that as a Windows user, for instance,
if I look in the Windows Registry, I won't
-
find that anything, any modification
occurred there. So that's a pretty
-
interesting sealth technique that is
enabled by the fact that the malware is
-
coming from the firmware. Okay. So, the
last thing that I want to talk about now
-
is prevention and remediation, so what can
you do to protect yourself against this
-
kind of attack? And if ever you were...
you find out that you had a UEFI rootkit in
-
your machine, what can you do? So,
prevention. So the first thing and the
-
most important thing, which is also the
most accessible thing, thankfully, is that
-
you should keep your UEFI firmware up to
date to make sure that if, you know,
-
security researchers found some issues
with your firmware and they disclosed it
-
and the firmware vendor fixed them, you
want to make sure that you have the latest
-
patches available on your machine. Then
the second thing is that you should really
-
enable Secure Boot. But let's note here
that Secure Boot itself would not
-
effectively you against this specific
attack. And the reason for that is that
-
Secure Boot takes the content of the SPI
flash memory as its root of trust, meaning
-
that what's inside the SPI flash memory is
not subject for validation. So what does
-
it validates then, right? Well, Secure
Boot will check what's coming from outside
-
of the SPI flash memory meanings the PCI
option ROMs and probably the most
-
important thing, the operating system
loader. So it's really a mechanism that
-
checks that the operating system loader
hasn't been tampered with. So what can we
-
do then, right? Well, what we need is a
hardware root of trust. So we need to move
-
the root of trust from the SPI flash
memory to some piece of hardware. So it
-
must be in a, you know, one time
programmable chip that is programmed
-
during manufacturing time and that cannot
be written to ever after. An example of
-
this exists - technology like Intel
BootGuard implements this. And also Apple
-
T2 security chip has a hardware root of
trust. And then you kind of need to hope
-
that your firmware configures the security
mechanisms properly and there's not much
-
you can do about it if your firmware is
up-to-date. But thankfully there are
-
firmware security assessment tool
available out there and an example of that
-
is Intel CHIPSEC. So, with Intel CHIPSEC
which is an open source software tool, so
-
you can just download this tool, put it in
an USB key, boot from it and then this
-
tool will check for all of the security
mechanism that we spoke about today, it
-
will check if they are properly configured
and also it checks for a bunch more stuff.
-
And now also CHIPSEC checks if your
firmware has this LoJax rootkit. So if you
-
want to know if your firmware properly
configures these security mechanism that's
-
really the way to go. Now about
remediation. So, this slide is kind of
-
short. And the reason for that is that if
you find out that you have a UEFI rootkit
-
in your SPI flash, there's not pretty much
you can do. You really need to re-flash
-
your UEFI firmware and that's definitely
not something that is easy to do for
-
anybody. And well, if it's not an option
for you, then you kind of need to get rid
-
of your motherboard or your laptop and get
a new one basically. So that's how serious
-
this kind of attack is. Now, conclusion.
So, our research shows that UEFI rootkits
-
are not only toys for researchers to play
with, but they are real world threats used
-
in actual cyber attacks. So it might be
something that you want to keep in mind
-
when you'll be defining your threat model.
Also we won't stress this enough: firmware
-
must be built with security in mind from
the bottom up, and things are getting
-
better because there are more and more
security researchers looking into this,
-
but there's still work to do. And
hopefully, our research help share
-
knowledge about how to prevent and
mitigate UEFI-based threats. So that is
-
pretty much it for me today. So thank you
for having me and if ever you're
-
interested to know more details about this
research, the white paper is available at
-
welivesecurity.com and you can grab a copy
there. So, thanks.
-
Applause
Herald: Alright, you know the drill. We
-
have 5 minutes for Q&A. So please, quick
and short questions. Number 1 please.
-
Question: (incomprehensible) attacking
other operating systems (incomprehensible)
-
Answer: In this case, well, that's kind of
the... pretty much the only one we're aware
-
of, apart from Hacking Team's UEFI
rootkit, and this one only works on
-
Windows, so we have no; we don't know
about any other that target's Linux or Mac
-
OS for instance.
-
Herald: Please refrain from walking in
front of the cameras when you're leaving.
-
Thank you.
Could we get microphone number
-
2 please.
Q: Hello, thanks for the talk. On your
-
slides you mentioned a tool, open source,
for checking out the layout. What was the
-
name of the tool?
A: It's called UEFI tool. Laughter
-
Q: Nice.
A: So you can find it on GitHub.
-
Q: Thanks.
Herald: The internet please.
-
Q: Thank you. Does the rootkit also work
when the UEFI is in BIOS legacy mode?
-
A: Uhm... That is a pretty good question.
I think it should, but I am not sure about
-
it. That's a good question, I'd have to
look into this, to have a... laughing an
-
answer I'm 100 percent sure about. Sorry
for that.
-
Herald: Microphone number 3 please. It's
you in the back, are you? No that's 4,
-
I'm sorry.
Q: OK. So, does the UEFI dropper still
-
work with BitLocker enabled?
-
A: I know. Oh yeah. Yeah. We test that.
-
No, it doesn't work if BitLocker is
enabled, so it doesn't wait for the... for
-
BitLocker to have decrypted all of the
data. So no, it doesn't work if
-
BitLocker is enabled.
-
Herald: Number 1 please.
-
Q: Would it be possible to work within
full disk encryption. (incomprehensible)
-
the file system was decrypted and then
installed the dropper.
-
A: I'm not sure I heard all of the
question, but if it works if there's full
-
disk encryption? Is it the question right?
Q: Would it be possible to make it work
-
with full disk encryption?
A: I think it should be because the LoJack
-
software is a legitimate one, the anti-
theft solution. They are able to make it
-
work even if BitLocker is enabled or full
disk encryption. So yeah, it should be
-
possible to do so.
-
Herald: One more internet question please.
-
Q: Thank you. What if a rootkit doesn't
fit in the SPI flash. Is filling up the
-
SPI flash space completely a valid
prevention?
-
A: No I don't know... we could really call
it a prevention mechanism. But yeah, if
-
there is not enough free space available
on the firmware volumes the tool will just fail.
-
Herald: Number two please.
-
Q: Hi. You said that there is no real
possibility to secure everything, but what
-
are your daily choices that you use like,
on your personal computer, to be fully
-
secret?
A: Well... laughing I could say an
-
alternative platform, but... laughter
but yeah, if you have
-
a modern Intel CPU and you have
-
Secure Boot enabled and you have, you
know, all of the latest UEFI firmware
-
updates, that's kind of the best you can
do to be safe for... against that kind of
-
attack.
Q: I have... I have my like this...
-
Herald: Number 1 please.
Q: So, going back to the LoJack
-
configuration file vulnerability. Is the
configuration file on the operating system
-
file system?
A: No no no, the... In fact it's... there is
-
not a separate configuration file, the
configuration is embedded inside the
-
executable. So it is embedded into
rpcnetp.exe.
-
Herald: Unfortunately, we are already out
of time. So please thank our speaker
-
again.
-
applause
-
postroll music
-
subtitles created by c3subtitles.de
in the year 2019. Join, and help us!