Tag: Security

Wannacry, Petya, NotPetya, Vault 7, Dark Matter, Show Numerous Key Flaws in Popular Devices

Purism Librem laptops are immune to such threats because of a deeply rooted philosophical difference about security

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—July 5th, 2017—Purism, the social purpose corporation which designs and produces security focused hardware and software, has released a new report on the latest cybersecurity threats and why nearly all devices are vulnerable to such attacks. The very design of modern hardware and software invites a host of threats, from sophisticated attacks, criminal activity, to hobbyist attempts, and reactive software patches simply cannot be released quickly enough to plug security holes. All manufacturers beside Purism are reactive to security threats only. Being proactive about security comes down to philosophy, business model, and reducing the attack surface to begin with.

There are 4 key factors as to why popular devices produced by large manufacturers are susceptible to rising security concerns:

  1. Proprietary software, where the source code is not auditable, leaving exploitable holes for criminals to take advantage of without the public knowing until it is too late
  2. Software written to address a wide array of hardware, leaving a large attack surface, rather than being small and tightly integrated with hardware
  3. Monolithic proprietary UEFI/BIOS with low-level remote access capabilities, rather than coreboot, a small secure fast boot firmware
  4. Inadequate reactive software updates to patch security vulnerabilities, rather than the more proactive removal of security holes to begin with, and having public source code to be audited

The best security in software follows a simple set of rules that the largest manufacturers fail because of their business models:

  1. Release the source code
  2. Tightly integrate the software with the hardware removing useless exploitable software
  3. Use less code, pre-install less bloatware, equals less attack area
  4. Avoid mystery binary code for critical components like WiFi cards
  5. Put protecting users over corporate profit; such as do not track users, do not require financial details to install apps, do not phone home with identifiable data, do not participate in corporate surveillance

WannaCry, Petya, and NotPetya, are increasing in complexity in a whack-a-mole, distributed criminals vs centralized corporation software battle where the users are the victim. The current proposed solutions from proprietary software vendors is reactive to these threats, which by definition means they will continue to happen in increasing frequency and potency. There is real motive for criminals to create ransomware, wreak havoc, and upset markets, and the reactive proprietary software patching approach is unacceptable as a security story.

Lower level threats a lot released with Vault 7, like Dark Matter, Intel AMT, EFI/UEFI exploits highlight that criminals are going deeper than software and operating systems, where even the reactive approach does not help, since proprietary operating system vendors do not release EFI/UEFI updates, and BIOS, EFI/UEFI updates are not commonly done by users.

In a proactive model, where the source code is released, making the attack surface small, and sharing the code for audit, has been the philosophical difference as to why Purism Librem laptops have been immune to all these threats.

“Protecting our digital life is a growing concern for individuals, reactive patching does not provide the peace of mind that users want” said Todd Weaver, CEO and Founder at Purism. “We provide that peace of mind by making security protection easy and the default for users.”

Purism’s Librem laptop line has been specifically designed to address these gaping security issues that big box manufacturers are unable and unwilling to combat due to being reactive and not releasing the source code. To date, Librems have been completely immune from the following cybersecurity attacks: Wannacry, Intel AMT, Petya, Dark Matter, All Vault 7 EFI/UEFI exploits, and NotPetya.

About Purism

Purism is a Social Purpose Corporation devoted to bringing security, privacy, software freedom, and digital independence to everyone’s personal computing experience. With operations based in San Francisco (California) and around the world, Purism manufactures premium-quality laptops and tablets, creating beautiful and powerful devices meant to protect users’ digital lives without requiring a compromise on ease of use. Purism designs and assembles its hardware in the United States, carefully selecting internationally sourced components to be privacy-respecting and fully Free-Software-compliant. Security and privacy-centric features come built-in with every product Purism makes, making security and privacy the simpler, logical choice for individuals and businesses.

Media Contact

Marie Williams, Coderella / Purism
+1 415-689-4029
pr@puri.sm
See also the Purism press room for additional tools and announcements.
 

How Purism Avoids Critical Intel Security Exploit

Intel dropped a fairly large bombshell on the world May 1st, 2017, when they published a security advisory that explains how nearly every single Intel chip since 2008 is now vulnerable to a remote exploit through AMT, even when powered off.

Purism, which uses Intel chips, happens to be immune to this very nasty threat. Purism happens to also be the only manufacturer where all products are designed specifically to be immune to this very substantial threat. Purism is able to accomplish this thanks to its strict belief in digital rights for users and adherence to its social purpose; it is this philosophy that brings Purism to systematically remove exploitable firmware from the computers it makes, and users are all the better for it.

We already published a lengthy article on the potential of this type of threat, which you can find at How Purism Avoids Intel AMT, but in case you wanted the shorter version:

  1. We choose Intel CPUs that do not have the hardware enabled to be exploitable (no vPro/AMT)
  2. We avoid Intel networking, to remove this exact threat (no Intel networking, no remote exploit from exploitable firmware)
  3. We neutralize the exploitable firmware

The larger message rings true; if you can’t control the computer, the computer controls you. This turn of events highlights that fact clearly; this exploitable Intel firmware is a binary at the lowest level of the CPU, outside the view of the user, allowing for anybody to use it to gain full control of the computer, even when the device is powered off. This represents the worst of all possible security vulnerabilities, and we are very proud to have a philosophy that makes our products the only high-end current hardware offering that can safely avoid this Intel security exploit.

How Purism avoids Vault 7 leaked threats “Dark Matter”

Recently, WikiLeaks unloaded another lot of Vault 7 documents, under the “Dark Matter” codename. In there, other tools and techniques used by the CIA to gain persistent remote exploits on Apple devices (including Macs and iPhones) are revealed.

Most of these attacks target Apple’s EFI/UEFI firmware, therefore such infections persist even if the operating system is re-installed. This collection of threats, including Sonic Screwdriver, Triton, Der Starke, and Dark Sea Skies, all utilize the same general principle: to attack a device at the BIOS level depth, in order to seize control of all shallower levels including the operating system, applications, networking, and web access.

In addition to the EFI/UEFI exploits mentioned, there are targeted exploits such as Night Skies focusing on iPhones, or the Sea Pea rootkit focusing on Apple’s Mac OS X kernel specifically.

Night Skies is a tool that operates in the background and does not exhibit user-alerting behavior, providing upload, download and execution capability on the device. NightSkies will attempt to use any available Internet connection to beacon. Once user activity is detected, it will monitor specific directories on the phone such as the browser history file, YouTube video cache, map files cache, or mail files metadata. Night Skies can then:

  • retrieve files from the iPhone including the address book, SMSes, call logs, etc.;
  • send files and binaries to the iPhone (such as additional hacking tools);
  • execute arbitrary commands on the iPhone;
  • grant full remote command and control;
  • masquerade as the standard HTTP protocol for communications;
  • use XXTEA block encryption to provide secure communications;
  • provide self-upgrade capability.

Sea Pea, on the other hand, is a rootkit designed for Mac OS X’s kernel, that will remain on the system unless one of the following conditions are met: the hard drive is reformatted, an upgrade is made to the next major version of OS X (i.e. 10.6), or an error is encountered (at which point SeaPea may remove itself).

What these threats continue to showcase is that EFI/UEFI is an ideal low-level backdoor to control a user’s device without their knowledge, and the leaked documents shows how widespread these threats are against any user running a EFI/UEFI BIOS.

Purism is working hard to make its products immune against these threats by designing its devices to be able to run coreboot instead EFI/UEFI. Purism also utilizes PureOS (a GNU/Linux based distribution that does not contain any mystery binaries), so the entire source code stack can be audited.

These documents continue to reinforce the fact that security is a game of depth, and the deeper you go with releasing free software where the source code can be audited, the better.

Purism has future plans of including hardware encryption tools to verify the entire boot chain, putting the entire system under a user’s control, rather than that of a bad corporation, government, spying agency, criminals, or ISPs.

Security Researcher Trammell Hudson and Device Maker Purism Join Forces to Set a New Standard for Security-Focused Laptops

Hudson’s security firmware Heads will be built into Purism Librem hardware to further protect users from cybersecurity threats, privacy invasion, identity theft, and more.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — APRIL 12, 2017 — One of the foremost security researchers in the infosec community, Trammell Hudson, is working with secure device maker Purism to integrate his free and open-source “Heads” firmware into the company’s Librem laptop line. Purism will be the first hardware company to integrate Heads into its products, and the partnership will push the industry standard with unprecedented protection for end-user devices. Testing has already begun for the integration of the two platforms. Read more

Purism Warrant Canary Updated April 1st 2017

[Please note: warrant canaries being posted on April 1st are not April Fools’ jokes.]

Before (or on) the first day of each quarter, Purism, following the general rules of warrant canaries, will update its own Warrant Canary page if none of the listed items occurs.

warrant-canary-64x70px

Warrant Canary, April 1st 2017

  1. We have not placed any backdoors into our software or hardware, and we have not complied with any requests to do so.
  2. We have not received, nor complied with any National Security Letters or FISA court orders.
  3. We have not been subject to any gag order by a FISA court.

The next statement will be published on the first day of each quarter (January 1st, April 1st, July 1st, October 1st). Please refer to the Warrant Canary page for details and digital signatures.

Yet Another EFI/UEFI Exploit, this one Utilizing NVRAM and Persistent Storage

Continuing on our previous post on this topic, another EFI/UEFI BIOS exploit theoretically known–and even proven to work by Trammel hudson some years ago–that resurfaced through the Vault 7 documents, is the EFI/UEFI exploit that can write to NVRAM or persistent storage. This means that this exploit cannot be detected from hard drive inspection, and can survive through a complete OS reinstall if you’re using EFI/UEFI (which is not a problem for Purism users running coreboot).

The CIA documents describe it best:

“These variables present interesting opportunities for our tools since they will survive a OS reinstall and are invisible to a forensic image of the hard drive. What’s also interesting is that there is no way to enumerate NVRAM variables from the OS… you have to know the exact GUID and name of the variable to even determine that it exists.” — the CIA, as leaked through the Vault 7 Persistent Storage Document

This line also summarizes intent for the exploit:

“This might be a good place to put either implants or encryption keys. If every implant deployment used a different GUID/name pair, it would make the variables a bit more difficult to discover.” — the CIA, from the Vault 7 Persistent Storage Document

This continues to reinforce that our philosophy and beliefs are the only way to have long-term products that respects users’ digital rights.

Proving the Known, EFI/UEFI Exploited for BIOS Level Attacks

We’re continuing with a second report (many more coming!) on the “Vault 7” Documents we started digesting recently. There is an extensive section dedicated to EFI/UEFI exploitations. While this threat has been known from a theoretical standpoint from the moment the non-free BIOS replacement–EFI/UEFI–came into existence, the Vault 7 documents published recently now confirm that these threats are real and these weaknesses are actively being exploited.

One interesting read we’re focusing on today is the EFI/UEFI “ExitBootServices Hooking” exploit and sample copy-and-paste code to inject a hook into the last execute state of the EFI/UEFI process (the “ExitBootServices”).

Copy-and-paste code was included in the leaks which allow for the exploitation of UEFI-based boot systems by altering the operating system’s kernel which is loaded into memory before exiting the UEFI boot sequence. The copy-and-paste code allows for an attacker to insert a custom hook which can be used to arbitrarily alter the operating system’s kernel in memory immediately before execution control is handed to the kernel. — Wikipedia’s summary.

It is trivial to utilize this exploit:

Because the ExitBootServices service can be found by getting its pointer from the global EFI_BOOT_SERVICES table, hooking the ExitBootServices call is trivial. […] When you’re running in UEFI, that EFI_BOOT_SERVICES table isn’t protected by anything, so you can just write directly to it. — Vault 7 ExitBootServices Hooking

The result is that the entire system is compromised. As the page highlights, “At this point, you can do whatever you want.”

This type of exploit once-again highlights that security is a game of depth. This exploit is one level below the kernel, which means it has complete control of every level above it, such as the kernel, the entire operating system, any and all applications, network traffic, web application usage, and all user interaction.

The good news is, Purism recently completed the port of coreboot to the Librem 13 v1 (with more ports to come for the rest of our devices), providing a free/libre and open source replacement for EFI/UEFI which avoids all of the exploits mentioned within the documents.

The only long-term approach to protect oneself is to have complete control of the device. Control is the key word, and there is no other way to have complete control than to have as much of the software released under free software licenses where the source code is available to confirm it operates in your best interest and not that of criminals, spies, bad hackers, nations, or thieves.

Confirming that EFI/UEFI has a known and trivial exploit that is built into the standard also confirms that there is no depth too deep to exploit, and the only defense against unwanted stripping of a users’ digital rights is to use hardware and software that you control. Purism does just that by releasing all software under a free software license where the source code is available to be audited, reviewed, and scrutinized making a user control their device not the device controlling the user.

Releasing the beta of PureOS 3

After our alpha release in November, we are today releasing the beta for PureOS 3.0, which we intend to release as a final release in time for our upcoming new laptop batch shipment (more news on that soon).

As PureOS uses a rolling release model, software all across the stack continued to receive updates since our first alpha some months ago, even though the core of our work has been to improve and deploy new infrastructure to support efficient development of this operating system and to make the PureOS experience more pleasant for users, too. The PureOS infrastructure is now better at exposing migration/update issues, which means that we iron out broken or missing package dependencies more quickly (with the goal of preventing them from ever being encountered by users, although such occurrences are already rare). Building this infrastructure for PureOS is some very ambitious—and often invisible—work that we are accomplishing as the foundation for all PureOS development.

We are also in the final stages of preparing proper developer documentation, closely modeled on Debian’s contributors documentation and procedures, but pointing to the right bits and pieces when it comes to PureOS.

FSF endorsement is work in progress: we are working with the FSF and addressing any concerns or requests they may have. As per the FSF’s requests:

  • The new PureOS website is now fully separate and works with LibreJS.
  • Iceweasel/Firefox was removed from the archive (its presence there was actually due to a repository synchronization bug) and we modified the add-ons system to avoid the possibility of installing non-free add-ons by mistake. That said, this is one of the reasons why PureBrowser exists, and PureBrowser will continue to be the default. The forced removal of Firefox/Iceweasel caused some trouble with the PureOS package repositories archive but this will be fixed before the final release.
  • TorBrowser is now torbrowser-launcher, a package that downloads and installs the official Tor browser with updates being applied as soon as the Tor project publishes them.

On the security front:

  • A Wayland-based GNOME 3 experience remains what we ship by default.
  • We have started preparing our Linux kernel to be based on the grsecurity kernel. This is available as a package in the beta’s repositories but is not enabled by default, as we consider it requires more testing (you can help!) so we can use it as the default Linux kernel in the future (for PureOS 3.0’s final release, hopefully!)… so feel free to install and try it out (don’t forget to install paxctld as well)! This will be a huge step forward in terms of security. While most regular GNU/Linux distributions are more secure and privacy-respecting than proprietary OSes, having the grsecurity patchset in PureOS’ Linux kernel by default will bring PureOS far above the norm in terms of desktop GNU/Linux security practices.
  • We look forward to integrating flatpak in the future to benefit from its sandboxing capabilities

As you can see, we’re making some nice progress and PureOS has great plans ahead to achieve a great user experience that balances security and usability. This is quite a bit better than running OSes that work against you or that strip you of control over the applications layer!

What the CIA Vault 7 Documents Mean

WikiLeaks has recently released a treasure trove of documents, codenamed Vault 7, that will take weeks to digest. And we will digest it all. But before we go document by document, we wanted to address top-level concerns users have, and how our philosophy and business model are the only ones that can withstand the test of time against this type of user device control. Read more