firmware hacking | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

An analysis of firmware images across devices from Dell, HP, and Lenovo has revealed the presence of outdated versions of the  OpenSSL  cryptographic library, underscoring a supply chain risk. EFI Development Kit, aka  EDK , is an open source implementation of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface ( UEFI ), which functions as an interface between the operating system and the firmware embedded in the device's hardware. The firmware development environment, which is in its second iteration (EDK II), comes with its own cryptographic package called  CryptoPkg  that, in turn, makes use of services from the OpenSSL project. Per firmware security company Binarly, the firmware image associated with Lenovo Thinkpad enterprise devices was found to use three different versions of OpenSSL: 0.9.8zb, 1.0.0a, and 1.0.2j, the last of which was released in 2018. What's more, one of the firmware modules named InfineonTpmUpdateDxe relied on OpenSSL version 0.9.8zb that w...

A previously undocumented firmware implant deployed to maintain stealthy persistence as part of a targeted espionage campaign has been linked to the Chinese-speaking Winnti advanced persistent threat group ( APT41 ). Kaspersky, which codenamed the rootkit  MoonBounce ,  characterized  the malware as the "most advanced  UEFI  firmware implant discovered in the wild to date," adding "the purpose of the implant is to facilitate the deployment of user-mode malware that stages execution of further payloads downloaded from the internet." Firmware-based rootkits, once a rarity in the threat landscape, are fast becoming lucrative tools among sophisticated actors to help achieve long standing foothold in a manner that's not only hard to detect, but also difficult to remove. The first firmware-level rootkit — dubbed  LoJax  — was discovered in the wild in 2018. Since then, three different instances of UEFI malware have been unearthed so far, including ...

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been a cornerstone of organizational cybersecurity. Nearly as old as the discipline of cybersecurity itself, it aims to help organizations identify and address potential security issues before they become serious problems. Yet, in recent years, the limitations of this approach have become increasingly evident.  At its core, Vulnerability Management processes remain essential for identifying and addressing weaknesses. But as time marches on and attack avenues evolve, this approach is beginning to show its age. In a recent report, How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management (Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, 8 November 2024, Mitchell Schneider Et Al.), we believe Gartner® addresses this point precisely and demonstrates how organizations can – and must – shift from a vulnerability-centric strategy to a broader Exposure Management (EM) framework. We feel it's more than a worthwhile read an...

Yet another bluetooth hacking technique has been uncovered. A highly critical cryptographic vulnerability has been found affecting some Bluetooth implementations that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker in physical proximity of targeted devices to intercept, monitor or manipulate the traffic they exchange. The Bluetooth hacking vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2018-5383, affects firmware or operating system software drivers from some major vendors including Apple, Broadcom, Intel, and Qualcomm, while the implication of the bug on Google, Android and Linux are still unknown. The security vulnerability is related to two Bluetooth features—Bluetooth low energy (LE) implementations of Secure Connections Pairing in operating system software, and BR/EDR implementations of Secure Simple Pairing in device firmware. How the Bluetooth Hack Works? Researchers from the Israel Institute of Technology discovered that the Bluetooth specification recommends, but does not mandate...

If you think Apple's Mac computers are much more secure than Windows-powered systems, you need to think again. This isn't true, and security researchers have finally proved it. Two security researchers have developed a proof-of-concept computer worm for the first time that can spread automatically between MacBooks, without any need for them to be networked. Dubbed Thunderstrike 2 , the new proof-of-concept firmware attack is inspired by previously developed proof-of-concept firmware called Thunderstrike. Thunderstrike Attack , developed by security engineer Trammell Hudson, actually took advantage of a vulnerability in Thunderbolt Option ROM that could be used to infect Apple Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) by allocating a malicious code into the boot ROM of an Apple computer through infected Thunderbolt devices. Thunderstrike 2 Spreads Remotely Although the original Thunderstrike required an attacker to have physical access to your Mac computer to wor...