One good thing we can say about Linux bundling all the drivers is that it obviates the need to run almost all of this type of low quality (if not outright spyware) driver management software. They are especially problematic because they can't be sandboxed easily like most other proprietary crap.
For whatever reason, distro maintainers working for free seem a lot more competent with security than billion dollar hardware vendors
> For whatever reason, distro maintainers working for free seem a lot more competent with security than billion dollar hardware vendors
I don't believe that these billion dollar hardware vendors are really incompetent with security. It's rather that the distro maintainers do care quite a bit about security, while for these hardware vendors consider these security concerns to be of much smaller importance; for their business it is likely much more important to bring the next hardware generation to the market as fast as possible.
In other words: distro maintainers and hardware vendors are simply interested in very different things and thus prioritize things very differently.
The most direct comparison would be the package manager, that's why I said distros. These driver management tools do a (poor) job at being a package manager, along with many other commercial software installation tools.
With Linux itself, it helps that they are working in public (whether volunteering or as a job), and you'd be sacked not in a closed-door meeting, but on LKML for everyone to see if you screw up this badly.
Wow, this is an extremely serious vulnerability. People writing it off because it requires MitM. There's always a MitM, the internet is basically a MitM.
This is super bad right? Like anybody who has this running will be vulnerable to a super basic HTTP redirect -> installer running on their machine attack, right? And on top of that it's for something that is likely installed on _so many_ machines, right?
I don't think I've ever seen something this exploitable that is so prevalent. Like couldn't you just sit in an airport and open up a wifi hotspot and almost immediately own anyone with ATI graphics?
1. Home router compromised, DHCP/DNS settings changed.
2. Report a wrong (malicious) IP for ww2.ati.com.
3. For HTTP traffic, it snoops and looks for opportunities to inject a malicious binary.
4. HTTPS traffic is passed through unchanged.
__________
If anyone still has their home-router using the default admin password, consider this a little wake-up call: Even if your new password is on a sticky-note, that's still a measurable improvement.
The risks continue, though:
* If the victim's router settings are safe, an attacker on the LAN may use DHCP spoofing to trick the target into using a different DNS server.
* The attacker can set up an alternate network they control, and trick the user into connecting, like for a real coffee shop, or even a vague "Free Wifi."
I don't expect an unbounded scope but I do expect it to cover the big scary headline items like RCE. Additionally, this can be exploited without MitM if you combine with e.g. a DNS cache poisoning attack. And they can still fix it even if they're not willing to pay a bounty.
This is the place they direct researchers to report bugs. If they don’t want to pay out for MITM, that’s fine, but they should still be taking out-of-scope reports seriously
+1 Bounty aside, this deserves attention. I wouldn't want to award bounties for MitM either if I made it so easy. They closed the issue as 'out of scope'... with no mention of follow-up (or even the bounty we don't care about).
I'm skeptical to say the least. Industry standard has been to ignore MitM or certificates/signatures, not everything.
A bug bounty should motivate exploitable bugs to be reported so that they can be fixed. IMO, if it refuses to fix certain kinds of bugs that can still be exploited, it's not working properly.
It's not directly an RCE unto itself, it requires something else. A compromised DNS on the network, e.g. So no surprise they ignored it.
Also, if AMD is getting overwhelmed with security reports (a la curl), it's also not surprising. Particularly if people are using AI to turn bug bounties into income.
Lastly if it requires a compromised DNS server, someone would probably point out a much easier way to compromise the network rather than rely upon AMD driver installer.
As someone that works security, the whole "A compromised DNS on the network" would be a total excuse not to pay.
The fact is allowing any type of unsigned update on HTTP is a security flaw in itself.
>someone would probably point out a much easier way to compromise the networ
No, not really. That's why every other application on the planet that does security of any kind uses either signed binaries or they use HTTPSONLY. Simply put allowing HTTP updates is insecure. The network should never be by default trusted by the user.
What's even fucking dumber on AMDs part is this is just one BGP hijacking from a worldwide security incident.
AMD AutoUpdate terminal always pops up at midnight for me and then requires me to dismiss it. I've been meaning to uninstall this but always forget about it the next morning.
Now I have good reason to block it entirely and go back to manual updates
While I don't like that the executable's update URL is using just plain HTTP, AMD does explicitly state that in their program that attacks requiring man-in-the-middle or physical access is out-of-scope.
Whether you agree with whether this rule should be out-of-scope or not is a separate issue.
What I'm more curious about is the presence of both a Development and Production URL for their XML files, and their use of a Development URL in production. While like the author said, even though the URL is using TLS/SSL so it's "safe", I would be curious to know if the executable URLs are the same in both XML files, and if not, I would perform binary diffing between those two executables.
I imagine there might be some interesting differential there that might lead to a bug bounty. For example, maybe some developer debug tooling that is only present only in the development version but is not safe to use for production and could lead to exploitation, and since they seemed to use the Development URL in production for some reason...
I already said I do not like that it is just using HTTP, and yes, it is problematic.
What I am saying is that the issue the author reported and the issue that AMD considers man-in-the-middle attacks as out-of-scope, are two separate issues.
If someone reports that a homeowner has the keys visibly on top of their mat in front of their front-door, and the homeowner replies that they do not consider intruders entering their home as a problem, these are two separate issues, with the latter having wider ramifications (since it would determine whether other methods and vectors of mitm attacks, besides the one the author of the post reported, are declared out-of-scope as well). But that doesn't mean the former issue is unimportant, it just means that it was already acknowledged, and the latter issue is what should be focused on (At least on AMD's side. It still presents a problem for users who disagree with AMD of it being out-of-scope).
The phrasing of your first two sentences in your first post makes it sound like you're dismissing the security issue. For saying that it's a real security issue and then another issue on top you should word it very differently.
> The phrasing of your first two sentences in your first post makes it sound like you're dismissing the security issue.
Genuine question, How does it sound like I'm dismissing it? My first sentence begins with the the phrase
> I don't like that the executable's update URL is using just plain HTTP
And my second sentence
> Whether you agree with whether this rule should be out-of-scope or not is a separate issue.
which, with context that AMD reported MITM as out-of-scope, clearly indicates that I think of it as an issue, albeit, a separate one from the one the author already reported.
Based on the policy (and my hat) I have to assume some business partner failed to maintain the 'ca-certificates' equivalent for Windows (or NTP) and was rewarded in their insane demand for plaintext.
So easy to fix, just... why? My kingdom for an 's'. One of these policies are not like the others. Consider certificates and signatures before categorically turning a blind eye to MitM, please: you "let them in", AMD. Wow.
> This means that a malicious attacker on your network, or a nation state that has access to your ISP can easily perform a MITM attack and replace the network response with any malicious executable of their choosing.
I am pretty sure, a nation state wanting to hack an individual's system has way more effective tools at their disposal.
> This means that a malicious attacker on your network, or a nation state that has access to your ISP can easily perform a MITM attack and replace the network response with any malicious executable of their choosing.
http://www2.ati.com/...
I'm blocking port 80 since forever so there's that.
But now ati.com is going straight into my unbound DNS server's blocklist.
For whatever reason, distro maintainers working for free seem a lot more competent with security than billion dollar hardware vendors
I don't believe that these billion dollar hardware vendors are really incompetent with security. It's rather that the distro maintainers do care quite a bit about security, while for these hardware vendors consider these security concerns to be of much smaller importance; for their business it is likely much more important to bring the next hardware generation to the market as fast as possible.
In other words: distro maintainers and hardware vendors are simply interested in very different things and thus prioritize things very differently.
It's shortsighted, but modern capitalism is more shortsighted than Mr. Magoo.
An absurd amount of weight is carried by a small number of very influential people that can and want to just do a good job.
And a signal that they're the best is you don't see them in the news.
We need more very influential people who aren't newsworthy.
With Linux itself, it helps that they are working in public (whether volunteering or as a job), and you'd be sacked not in a closed-door meeting, but on LKML for everyone to see if you screw up this badly.
I don't think I've ever seen something this exploitable that is so prevalent. Like couldn't you just sit in an airport and open up a wifi hotspot and almost immediately own anyone with ATI graphics?
1. Home router compromised, DHCP/DNS settings changed.
2. Report a wrong (malicious) IP for ww2.ati.com.
3. For HTTP traffic, it snoops and looks for opportunities to inject a malicious binary.
4. HTTPS traffic is passed through unchanged.
__________
If anyone still has their home-router using the default admin password, consider this a little wake-up call: Even if your new password is on a sticky-note, that's still a measurable improvement.
The risks continue, though:
* If the victim's router settings are safe, an attacker on the LAN may use DHCP spoofing to trick the target into using a different DNS server.
* The attacker can set up an alternate network they control, and trick the user into connecting, like for a real coffee shop, or even a vague "Free Wifi."
Op and others are saying DNS poisoning is a popular way of achieving that goal.
I'm skeptical to say the least. Industry standard has been to ignore MitM or certificates/signatures, not everything.
Also, if AMD is getting overwhelmed with security reports (a la curl), it's also not surprising. Particularly if people are using AI to turn bug bounties into income.
Lastly if it requires a compromised DNS server, someone would probably point out a much easier way to compromise the network rather than rely upon AMD driver installer.
The fact is allowing any type of unsigned update on HTTP is a security flaw in itself.
>someone would probably point out a much easier way to compromise the networ
No, not really. That's why every other application on the planet that does security of any kind uses either signed binaries or they use HTTPSONLY. Simply put allowing HTTP updates is insecure. The network should never be by default trusted by the user.
What's even fucking dumber on AMDs part is this is just one BGP hijacking from a worldwide security incident.
Now I have good reason to block it entirely and go back to manual updates
Whether you agree with whether this rule should be out-of-scope or not is a separate issue.
What I'm more curious about is the presence of both a Development and Production URL for their XML files, and their use of a Development URL in production. While like the author said, even though the URL is using TLS/SSL so it's "safe", I would be curious to know if the executable URLs are the same in both XML files, and if not, I would perform binary diffing between those two executables.
I imagine there might be some interesting differential there that might lead to a bug bounty. For example, maybe some developer debug tooling that is only present only in the development version but is not safe to use for production and could lead to exploitation, and since they seemed to use the Development URL in production for some reason...
No, just no. This is not a separate issue. It is 100% the issue.
Lets say I'm a nation state attacker with resources. I write up my exploit and then do a BGP hijack of whatever IPs the driver host resolves to.
There you go, I compromised possibly millions of hosts all at once. You think anyone cares that this wasn't AMDs issue at this point?
I already said I do not like that it is just using HTTP, and yes, it is problematic.
What I am saying is that the issue the author reported and the issue that AMD considers man-in-the-middle attacks as out-of-scope, are two separate issues.
If someone reports that a homeowner has the keys visibly on top of their mat in front of their front-door, and the homeowner replies that they do not consider intruders entering their home as a problem, these are two separate issues, with the latter having wider ramifications (since it would determine whether other methods and vectors of mitm attacks, besides the one the author of the post reported, are declared out-of-scope as well). But that doesn't mean the former issue is unimportant, it just means that it was already acknowledged, and the latter issue is what should be focused on (At least on AMD's side. It still presents a problem for users who disagree with AMD of it being out-of-scope).
Genuine question, How does it sound like I'm dismissing it? My first sentence begins with the the phrase
> I don't like that the executable's update URL is using just plain HTTP
And my second sentence
> Whether you agree with whether this rule should be out-of-scope or not is a separate issue.
which, with context that AMD reported MITM as out-of-scope, clearly indicates that I think of it as an issue, albeit, a separate one from the one the author already reported.
Coincidence?
So easy to fix, just... why? My kingdom for an 's'. One of these policies are not like the others. Consider certificates and signatures before categorically turning a blind eye to MitM, please: you "let them in", AMD. Wow.
And it's obviously an oversight; there is no reason to intentionally opt for http over https in this situation.
I am pretty sure, a nation state wanting to hack an individual's system has way more effective tools at their disposal.
But now ati.com is going straight into my unbound DNS server's blocklist.
I love how they grouped man in the middle there