A newly discovered vulnerability dubbed ‘Boothole’ compromises the foundation of device security for “virtually all Linux distributions” and some Microsoft’s Windows devices that employ “Secure Boot” feature, according to a new report.
UEFI
Episode 114: Complexity at Root of Facebook Breach and LoJax is a RAT You Can’t Kill
In this week’s podcast: Facebook revealed that a breach affected 50 million accounts and as many as 90 million users. Is complexity at the root of the social media giant’s troubles? We speak with Gary McGraw of the firm Synopsys about it. Also: BIOS-based malware has been demonstrated at security conferences for years. Last week, the security firm ESET warned that it identified a sample in the wild. Even worse: the Russian Hacking Group Fancy Bear was believed to be responsible. We’ll talk to firmware security expert Giovanni Vigna of the firm Lastline about the truth and hype around LoJax and other firmware based attacks.
UEFI: Security, BIOS and the Internet of Things
One of the notable trends in recent years has been the drive, among malicious actors, to compromise devices in new- and hard-to-detect ways. An area of interest and exploration is malicious software that can attack a computer’s BIOS – the small bit of code that runs when a computing device is first powered on. BIOS malware is so powerful because it offers adversaries the possibility of getting a foothold on systems prior to an operating system and the security features- and applications that run there. Successful BIOS attacks give attackers almost total control over the system they are installed on. BIOS malware isn’t a new idea. In fact, it has been around since the late 1990s, when the Chernobyl Virus was identified. That virus could wipe a machine’s BIOS, a well as the contents of its hard drive. But BIOS threats have been getting more attention lately. Proof of concept malware appeared as recently […]
