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Patch reliability is unclear, but widespread attacks make patching prudent. Go ahead and patch, but watch out for potential problems. |
Patch Lady here with paranoia of day 5. And this one is a doosy… can you trust your hardware? You’ve probably seen the headline about chips embedded
[See the full post at: Patch Lady – 31 days of paranoia – day 5]
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
I think of myself as a reasonably progressive person that wants the best science and technology have to offer, along with enlightened policies, to be used to benefit the population at large.
But when a country does not make clothes for its own people, because the businesses that take care of clothing find it cheaper to get them from abroad to sell them here to us customers, who also get them cheaper as a result, and when the little engines that are critical to keep going our highly connected and computerized society: microchips, Pcs, network servers and more, are made also abroad because it is a good deal for our manufacturers to set up their factories there, that is where my enthusiasm stops. Certainly, in this case, this move to outsource production of high tech to their country has been great for the Chinese, as it has helped them modernized their country and give employment to so many there, while at the same time keeping the price of the finished product considerably lower than otherwise here. But the nature of their political system and perhaps the inevitable drift of international great powers relationships, make it likely that instead of just loving us for helping them build their country in this fashion, they end up giving back the, er, Greek present that is the reason for the discussion here and pretty much everywhere at the moment.
Things, truth be told, are still rather murky as to what exactly has happened. There are claims and counterclaims made with great assurance by the parties directly involved. Let us hope that, when things get sorted out, it turns out that the noise was much worse than the actual train crash. We’ll just better wait and see
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/10/supply-chain-security-is-the-whole-enchilada-but-whos-willing-to-pay-for-it/#more-45297 A good read there as well.
Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher
Further to Brian Krebs’ article on supply-chain issues…
From: Weekly Threat Report 28th September 2018
Don’t yank my chain – the cyber threat to software supply chains
The continuing threat to the software supply chain is again in the spotlight following a new report by threat intelligence company Crowdstrike.
The NCSC defines the supply chain threat as “operations or activities that are designed to threaten the confidentiality, integrity or availability of communications, data or systems: and which use any part of the supply chain as an attack vector.”
A survey of senior IT Professionals by Crowdstrike has emphasised the ongoing scale of the problem: two-thirds of respondents reported that their organisation had been subject to a software supply chain attack. Given the often under-reported nature of cyber attacks, this is likely to have been an underestimate.
Awareness of the cyber threat generally by organisations, combined with continual investment and development of network defences, has meant that cyber actors will seek alternative ways of attacking organisations. The supply chain can sometimes be the weak link in cyber defence.
Another study of UK businesses by telecoms firm Beaming also highlights that attitudes to lax security procedures from suppliers can affect their ability to do further business. According to the study, a third of UK firms would stop using a supplier whose negligence caused a cyber security incident.[ii]
The findings in both these reports emphasise that supply chain attacks are not a threat that will go away, but will likely increase. They offer further evidence that good cyber security is essential not just for organisations but for their suppliers as well. Cyber security is a collective, all-round endeavour and these reports firmly underline that point.
NCSC has published a range of guidance on supply chain security which can be found here:
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/a4-supply-chain
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/supply-chain-security
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/assessing-supply-chain-security
Back in 2006, I went to work for a US government branch that does things with radioactive material. However, I worked in a non-classified, very vanilla office that has nothing to do with such devices. The IT director (whom I respect and is a personal friend), ordered two new desktop computers for me and another new hire. She followed all of the government procurement regulations.
A few weeks after my PC arrived, she got a phone call from the HQ office, on “The Mall”, in Washington DC, asking her why the h**l she bought two Lenovo desktop computers. They demanded to know which IP addresses they had been assigned and reconfigured their firewalls to specifically lock down and monitor my IP address. As far as I know, they watched every packet that my PC sent. It did not help my worry to know that the US Government was certainly watching my machine, and that they were worried that the Chinese might have been capable of doing the same.
My current laptop is a Lenovo Thinkpad. It’s got an Intel I7 cpu. It has the Intel Management Engine, the Meltdown and Spectre flaws, and UEFI. If any government wants in, I’m sure that they can find some way pick a lock somewhere below Ring 0. There is no point in worrying about something I cannot control.
Learning is a lifelong process-or you don’t live long!
Am going to download and use Wireshark; my knowledge of networking could use a brush-up.
As to the tiny chips on Apples boards:
In the late 70’s I worked as a procurement agent for a govt. contractor buying 54LS (low power chips. One day I was surprised to see a Japanese vendor as “approved” for one chip. This was a first, so I walked into my boss’s office to make sure it wasn’t a mistake, as back then everything in critical programs had to be from domestic sources. He said, “Yep, it’s been approved by the govt.” I kinda scratched my head and said, “Well, fine, as long as continue to get along…” and went back to my cube. I think I smelled neurons burning behind me.
Moral? This current situation was inevitable. It’s been the way of the world since then regarding manufacturing.
Personally, I feel a strong urge to go live in the woods, hang from a tree by my knees and learn how to play the flute! 
Win7 Pro SP1 64-bit, Dell Latitude E6330 ("The Tank"), Intel CORE i5 "Ivy Bridge", 12GB RAM, Group "0Patch", Multiple Air-Gapped backup drives in different locations. Linux Mint Newbie
--
"The more kinks you put in the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the pipes." -Scotty
if it is only day 5, are we going to have enough tin foil hats to pass around?
Anonymous ( #222069 ) For your information, since you asked: yes, there will be enough tin hats and they are going to be those spiffy new models, the ones with little Chinese chips inside to make them work better.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV
It is true. There are loop holes in everything to monitor us and control us. Windows 10 is the worse offender of them all.
Part of the problem of detecting occasional malicious traffic is that Microsoft is not transparent about routine telemetry which is used in Windows. If we can’t filter out the signals from normal Windows telemetry, detecting something which is not supposed to be happening just got much more difficult. Especially when the signals being sent back to the foreign country may be months apart. And when the chips themselves may be hidden beneath other chips in a different Motherboard layer.
Add to that rumors that our own NSA and other agencies may have been doing similar things with USB cables (“cottonmouth”) and who knows how else, and it does not surprise me that at least some tech companies were not able to detect this spying. And it further does not surprise me that the official government stance is “nothing to see here — move along”.
That said, I don’t think my life is interesting enough or financially valuable enough for anyone to want to spend money to inject spying technologies target at me into my own hardware. And even if they did, I have not that much to lose. They aren’t banging on my door and arresting me yet.
Read once, figure out if there’s anything simple I can do (like a BIOS update) and get back to my life. Such as it is.
-- rc primak
If Telemetry was confined to Microsoft I’d be happy.
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