UEFI: Microsoft leaks backdoor key, firmware flung wide open

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56KB, 469x359px

What now, winfags?

http://arstechnica.co.uk/security/2016/08/microsoft-secure-boot-firmware-snafu-leaks-golden-key/

Microsoft has inadvertently demonstrated the intrinsic security problem of including a universal backdoor in its software after it accidentally leaked its so-called "golden key"—which allows users to unlock any device that's supposedly protected by Secure Boot, such as phones and tablets.

The key basically allows anyone to bypass the provisions Microsoft has put in place ostensibly to prevent malicious versions of Windows from being installed, on any device running Windows 8.1 and upwards with Secure Boot enabled.

And while this means that enterprising users will be able to install any operating system.

The golden keys were found by MY123 and Slipstream in March this year. They've just posted, on a rather funky website, a description both of Microsoft's security errors and of its seeming reluctance to patch the issue. The researchers note that this snafu is a real-world demonstration of the lack of wisdom in the FBI's recent demands for universal backdoors in Apple's devices. They wrote:

The researchers seem to have found the golden key—which isn't a PKI-type private key you would use to sign binaries, but rather a way to alter the tasks executed by UEFI at boot—bundled in dormant form on retail devices, left in as a debugging tool by accident. Now apparently available online, it should allow any user to turn off Secure Boot.

Secure Boot works at the firmware level, and is designed only to allow an operating system signed with a key certified by Microsoft to load. It can be disabled on many desktops, but on most other Windows devices, it's hard-coded in. The golden key policy seems to have been designed for internal debugging purposes, to allow OS signature checks to be disabled, apparently so programmers can test new builds. In practice, it could well open up Microsoft's tablets and phones to serious attacks.