168
votes
Accepted
Buying a "Used" Router
Short answer: do a factory reset, update the firmware, and you are good to go.
The risk is very low, bordering zero. The previous owner may have installed a custom firmware or changed its ...
- 53.5k
85
votes
Should firmware images for IoT be encrypted for security reasons?
No. You should not rely upon the obscurity of your firmware in order to hide potential security vulnerabilities that exist regardless of whether or not you encrypt/obfuscate your firmware.
I have a ...
- 135k
84
votes
Do multiple routers increase security?
It may look good on paper, but it's a terrible idea.
You assume that the only way to get in your PC is from the first hop, the router closer to you, and that to hack one device, the previous one ...
- 53.5k
56
votes
Accepted
Safe to download router firmware over unencrypted HTTP?
Sure - it could be a signed image. If the router has a built-in public key, and the image was signed by the corresponding private key, it would be perfectly safe.
Unless someone had got the private ...
- 27.4k
42
votes
What is the point of using an open source and secure OS if you are running it on a machine with closed source firmware?
Historically, the open source movement is not about security but about freedom. Basically, Richard Stallman was very dismayed at not being able to fiddle with his printer because the driver source was ...
- 172k
29
votes
How to verify if router firmware is legitimate
There is no generic way to check if a downloaded firmware is the original one. A vendor might provide tools for this or not. But a properly designed update process would already include that the ...
- 198k
27
votes
Accepted
Should I worry about compromised firmware when reinstalling an OS?
Basically yes, you're right to worry. However, it's not the garden variety adversary that has that kind of capabilities... Also more and more update mechanisms are protected by a signature check, and —...
- 5,487
25
votes
What is the point of using an open source and secure OS if you are running it on a machine with closed source firmware?
Open Source Does Not Unequivocally = More Secure/Safe
Anyone CAN look at open source software/hardware, but that doesn't guarantee that "anyone" WILL look at it; further, if they do look at it, it ...
- 628
24
votes
Buying a "Used" Router
The main risk is that the firmware has been replaced by a malicious version, which could make it possible to intercept all the traffic on your network. Passwords, injecting malware, redirecting you to ...
- 128k
23
votes
Safe to download router firmware over unencrypted HTTP?
It is probably safe.
But downloading over https should be preferred if possible.
Without https:
If there is a flaw in the signature mechanism, it can be exploited (example: https://github.com/...
- 2,095
21
votes
What is the point of using an open source and secure OS if you are running it on a machine with closed source firmware?
Leaving aside the "open source == secure" argument, you can also look at this question as "Why run a secure OS when the BIOS/firmware isn't guaranteed to be secure".
Why bother locking my front door ...
- 1,056
18
votes
Buying a "Used" Router
By far, your main risk in buying an "open box" router is that the router has some subtle damage that the manufacturer didn't detect but that will ultimately reduce the lifespan of the device. That's ...
- 1,121
17
votes
Can BIOS malware be installed from OS?
Firmware configuration
Writing to the BIOS is a privileged operation, only doable by the superuser. Many BIOSes attempt to prevent this, for example by locking the SPI write bit and limiting the ...
- 66.5k
12
votes
How can anyone access Intel's "backdoor OS", MINIX?
AMT is is hardly a secret. It is a feature for IT departments to get pseudo-console access to PCs over the network and remotely manage them. (The common term is Out of Band or OOB management.)
It is ...
- 508
12
votes
Is Mac OS safer to use as far as firmware rootkits, cold boot attacks and evil maid?
Are there any things like TPM and Secure boot for Mac to protect against these security problems?
Short version: Yes, and recent Macs have some very good security features like hardware-based RAM ...
- 46.2k
11
votes
Accepted
Write-protection at hardware level for security
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Before I begin, I'd like to explain a bit about the term trust as it is used in an information security context. In infosec, trust often has the opposite meaning of what ...
- 66.5k
11
votes
Should firmware images for IoT be encrypted for security reasons?
Doubtful it would be beneficial. It is by far a better option to push it open-source than closed source. It might seem silly and even controversial at first, but opening up a project to the public has ...
- 653
9
votes
Accepted
Are DVDs vulnerable to firmware malware (and assorted questions)?
You have quite a few different questions in here. Let's try to answer them.
Are DVD drives & SATA infrastructure vulnerable like badusb
The SATA protocol is used exclusively for storage, not any ...
- 66.5k
8
votes
Accepted
Is it possible to take an image of the firmware of HDD and SSD?
There is a standard to write firmware, the ATA DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE command and the segmented version (transfer protocol 3), but there is no standard for reading the firmware back. As another answer ...
- 66.5k
8
votes
Buying a "Used" Router
In short: If you really care about stuff like that, go into a retail store and buy a new router that's on stock. The risk is small, but you can't easily mitigate it.
I could imagine some creep buying ...
- 704
7
votes
Accepted
Why doesn't Google publish Android firmware images with lots of drivers, which will work on lots of devices?
Why doesn't Google distribute Android firmware images with lots of included drivers, ...
This means that Google would need to get access to the drivers in the first place and not only by binary but ...
- 198k
7
votes
Buying a "Used" Router
What are the main risks in this scenario?
I know this is not the intent of your question, but in my opinion the main risk is not to you, but to the previous owner. Chances are that the credentials of ...
- 29.6k
7
votes
Do multiple routers increase security?
It depends upon security from what?
If a typical single router is compromised, then what does the compromise do?
Generally this enables it to be used as a zombie attack platform that attributes back ...
- 8,118
6
votes
What is the "ThinkPwn" vulnerability and what does it allow attackers to do?
what this allows an attacker to do?
It allows an attacker to execute arbitrary code in System Management Mode (SMM), a highly privileged execution mode of x86 processors. This mode is transparent to ...
- 1,088
6
votes
What is the point of using an open source and secure OS if you are running it on a machine with closed source firmware?
Open source (free/libre) software is not (primarily) about security. One of its more important aspects is trust: you can verify what's running, it is much harder to hide something malicious. Some ...
- 24.4k
6
votes
What is known about the capabilities of AMD's Secure Processor?
I was interested in the same issue and did some preliminary research. I'll try to answer some of the questions, though as a non-AMD engineer I cannot be certain.
Does it have software-updatable ...
- 161
6
votes
Safe to download router firmware over unencrypted HTTP?
Probably there's a digital signature on the firmware and a key on the router. If the update file is tampered somehow, the signature verification will fail and the router will reject the update.
It ...
- 53.5k
6
votes
Should firmware images for IoT be encrypted for security reasons?
A well-designed firmware should rely on the strength of its access key rather than relying on the attacker's ignorance of the system design. This follows the foundational security engineering ...
- 288
6
votes
Accepted
Should firmware images for IoT be encrypted for security reasons?
Some people argue that code which is open source can be audited by many and therefor contains little bugs. On the other hand, attackers have the same easy access and also look for these same ...
- 1,820
6
votes
What are the best practices to implement secured remote firmware updates over-the-air (OTA)?
TL;DR:
On your distribution system:
create a public/private keypair.
ship the public key with the first firmware release.
create an update package.
use HMAC to create a secure hash of the package.
...
- 53.5k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible