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GOD MODE UNLOCKED - Hardware Backdoors in x86 CPUs

Black Hat · 319K views · 2018-08-28 · 51:00

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Overview

Christopher Domas's Black Hat talk demonstrates a hardware backdoor in a third-party x86 processor, a hidden core that grants root from userland. He uses it to discuss how feasible broader hardware backdoors might be.

On Hacker News

Cited in hardware-trust and supply-chain threads as a concrete, startling demonstration of chip-level backdoors.

Recommended by 1 HN people across 1 months · HN mentions 2018–2021

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What people said

jerf · 2019-06 · Strong recommendation

Probably not. However, historically, these sorts of attacks always get better, not worse. And while even that can sometimes be empty rhetoric, I will say in the last 5 years I'm seeing a lot of security attacks that are already well beyond what even my moderately-trained intuition would suggest are possible, so I have to admit I've sort of given up on trying to guess on whether or not an attack can be made practical. I've seen too many mind-blowing presentations from security researchers to think I can bound their abilities safely. I wouldn't care to bet that they won't move the attacks I already am flabbergasted can exist to some other even-more practical attack that I am flabbergasted can exist. This is unrelated to the current matter, but let me give you an example: [VIDEO] If you think that's trivially obvious, and you're confident you can predict how these sorts of things will play out in the future, more power to you, but I'm certainly not justified in that belief at my skill level. I'm just happy I can follow that presentation!

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matheusmoreira · 2021-03 · Reference

> we need tools that don't require so much blind trust Completely agree. > Open source and verifiable down to the firmware is the only chance we have at any real level of trust The hardware itself could be compromised though. There's just no way to know what's really inside these black boxes. [VIDEO] We'll never have real trust until we get the ability to fabricate our own processors in our own home just like we already have the ability to write our own software.

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Enginerrrd · 2019-10 · Reference

Yeah Occam's razor says your efforts would be much better spent on flashing custom firmware than a retrofit. That or a deliberate backdoor built into the chip from the ground up. Or something like this: [VIDEO] But a nearly magic rice-grain part with a microcontroller and networking?? You could make a fortune in IOT with something that capable.

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