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A security researcher says Microsoft secretly built a backdoor into BitLocker, releases an exploit to prove it (www.techspot.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[+] -45 points 4 months ago (40 children)

Copy Fail, Dirty Frag and Fragnesia exist. What are you going to switch to now?

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  • [–] 42 points 4 months ago (13 children)

    They will be patched. There is also no indication that they 'be been known and exploited till recently.

    This was allegedly deliberately non patched to be exploited.

    Getting a system without bugs and security issues is impossible, you can at least avoid intentional compromise.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago

    This was allegedly deliberately non patched to be exploited.

    Anyone can allege anything. And even if it really was intentional compromise, show me the alternative where that will never occur. Insider threats are always going to be a major attack vector.

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  • [+] -13 points 4 months ago (11 children)

    They will be patched. There is also no indication that they 'be been known and exploited till recently.

    Two of the three are being used in the wild, with Copy Fail being retroactively found at least 9 days before the disclosure.

    What are the indications that the BitLocker vulnerability is already being utilised?

    This was allegedly deliberately non patched to be exploited.

    Alleged by a guy who was fired from Microsoft. I'd take that with a pinch of salt.

    Getting a system without bugs and security issues is impossible, you can at least avoid intentional compromise.

    I agree! But other than one angry dude, not much else is pointing towards this being intentional - so far! Let's see how things go.

    That being said, open source repos are being attacked constantly with attempts at intentional malicious code injection - I'm sure you've heard of XZ Utils? How many others went through and are being exploited without anyone noticing?

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  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    Dude, enjoy your Windows then. This is not Twitter (or X or whatever) where you can go do your master's bidding of creating noise to try and control the normies. Here most of us know how to do research and have the ability to differentiate bots (human or otherwise) from actual thinking individuals with a modicum of common sense and more than 2 functioning brain cells.

    Look at your down-votes and take a hint. That bullshit has no effect here.

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  • [+] -9 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Dude, enjoy your Windows then.

    Well, I'm a Linux user so I can't.

    This is not Twitter (or X or whatever) where you can go do your master’s bidding of creating noise to try and control the normies

    Of course you can! Just like on every other social media! What are you even talking about? :D

    Here most of us know how to do research and have the ability to differentiate bots (human or otherwise) from actual thinking individuals with a modicum of common sense and more than 2 functioning brain cells.

    You'd think that, but if you actually know a bit about tech, this community is hilariously ignorant most of the time - on all the matters you mentioned. :D

    Look at your down-votes and take a hint. That bullshit has no effect here.

    The hint is that this community is extremely aggressive towards language that goes against the hive-mind. The bullshit has no effect because people can't differentiate what's bullshit and what isn't, so they just automatically assume any statement that isn't violently anti-MS is bullshit spewed by bots at their master's bidding.

    Take your comment as example...

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    I'll absolutely agree on that one part of your comment. At this point, any comment that remotely seems like its defending anything Microsoft does to me is now considered bullshit attempts by MS to clear their name to some extent. When a company is so consistently voicing lies all over the place, their actions display those lies in clear light, and someone is defending any of it, yeah, no use in even looking into it, so it goes into the 'planted bot' bag out of principle alone.

    One more thing I'll agree on is the hive mind mentality, and we all live through that to some degree, no exceptions. We would all like to think we're this individual entity with minds of our own influenced by nothing and no-one, but we all know that's bullshit, unless you live in a cave at the top of mount Everest and your community IA made out of fucking squirrels and frozen rocks (no idea if there are caves or squirrels on mount Everest, or rocks for that matter, I pulled those out of my ass). We do have the ability to question everything.

    Now, while there's all kinds of people in Lemmy, there are only 2 main groups that then brach out to the other sub-groups. There's those of us that want a less "moderated by what may damage the 'company'" content and discussions, and then there's those that are here to disrupt and misinform, regardless of if it's of their own volition or if there's someone above them pushing it, whatever the intention may be. You're so clearly part of the latter that blocking you, like you suggested to someone else, would be to your advantage alone, not the community's. For example, why did you only take a snippet of my comment about how this is not Twitter instead of the whole paragraph? I'll tell you why. This is the same behavior used by some Christian pastors to manipulate people by reading some small parts of the bible to eliminate the original context and inject their own. You're too fucking transparent, try harder.

    That's all I have in terms of responses to your

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    What are the indications that the BitLocker vulnerability is already being utilized?

    Microsoft shipping a vulnerable version of the recovery environment. It is the 'exploit'.

    Alleged by a guy who was fired from Microsoft. I’d take that with a pinch of salt.

    Such is the nature of closed source software. You select people who will remain complicit till they have a grievance against you. Even if they don't and talked for moral reasons do you think they would not been fired for it?

    That being said, open source repos are being attacked constantly with attempts at intentional malicious code injection - I’m sure you’ve heard of XZ Utils? How many others went through and are being exploited without anyone noticing?

    Who knows. How many more went through at closed source software a limited amount of people can test in the same way?

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  • [–] -3 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    Microsoft shipping a vulnerable version of the recovery environment. It is the ‘exploit’.

    Red Hat and Canonical shipped a vulnerable version of SSH, the thing was caught basically hours before hitting all devices around the world.

    Should Red Hat and Canonical be now considered hostile as much as MS is?

    You select people who will remain complicit till they have a grievance against you. Even if they don’t and talked for moral reasons do you think they would not been fired for it?

    I can only answer by saying this: I wish you luck in the job market and hope you'll eventually find an employer you don't assume to be a hostile entity towards you.

    Who knows. How many more went through at closed source software a limited amount of people can test in the same way?

    This is the equivalent of "prove that God doesn't exist". We can't know because they haven't been found, mate.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Were they the developers of the ssh package? Microsoft is the developer of the vulnerable bitlocker package and the ones who chose to ship it.

    I am employed, most employers are obviously not as corrupt as the biggest corporations on the planet, they simply can't afford to.

    I agree we can't know. We can know for FOSS software. You are treating uknownable as being less than the known bugs in Foss software. That's dishonest, lad.

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  • [–] -2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Microsoft is the developer of the vulnerable bitlocker package and the ones who chose to ship it.

    ... one guy claims.

    Another possibility is that they have two separate builds fro BitLocker, and the one used in WinRE is vulnerable which they missed.

    We don't have enough information to clearly state that they did this on purpose.

    We can know for FOSS software. You are treating uknownable as being less than the known bugs in Foss software. That’s dishonest, lad.

    Again, read up about the XZ Utils vulnerability. We technically can know, but we don't know, which was a statement by the guy responsible for package. It's not dishonest, it's a statement of fact.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    If you actually read his github you would know that there is a different version of the responsible component between the recovery environment and an installation. Only the RE has the issue.

    I've read the XZ vulnerability. The very same thing can happen in a closed source corporate project. There are many arrests of foreign intelligence agents that worked in big tech amd/government. It would of course be easier to cover up. As would vulnerabilities discovered by ai, since they can limit who can check their code.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago

    If you actually read his github you would know that there is a different version of the responsible component between the recovery environment and an installation. Only the RE has the issue.

    I know. It was mentioned in the article. It's precisely why I said:

    Another possibility is that they have two separate builds fro BitLocker, and the one used in WinRE is vulnerable which they missed.

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  • [–] 25 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    Those are 'vulnerabilities' being exploited, and software will always have those, and when found, in Linux, they are patched, rather quickly in some cases. Microsoft develops Windows with the intention of making it vulnerable, so it is effectively commercial malware.

    Those are 2 entirely different things.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    Microsoft develops Windows with the intention of making it vulnerable, so it is effectively commercial malware

    The intention is currently suggested by a disgruntled ex-employee. I'd say that warrants caution before making such broad statements.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago

    No, Microsoft BAD! Now, does the fact that this is an allegedly diagruntled employee removes all the predatory bullshit and malware Microsoft does all the time? Just think about it, research a bit how Microsoft drives its business and revenue. It's all there for anyone to see.

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  • [–] 11 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    Those are potential vulnerabilities that can be patched. This is an indication that MS intends for bitlocker which you really need to be secure to bother using windows on a laptop to never be secure by design.

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  • [–] -4 points 4 months ago (5 children)

    Those are potential vulnerabilities that can be patched

    "Potential"? They are actively being exploited. And they don't require physical access to the device.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    They dont require physical access, but they require access to a non-root account on the machine. How often do you create accounts on your local machine for malicious actors to use?

    When you do a new OS install, do you create a separate user account for guests and then share the login details with random people?

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    The require the person to have already compromised you and be running software on your machine

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  • [+] 6 points 4 months ago (9 children)
    [removed by mod]
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  • [+] -6 points 4 months ago (8 children)

    I mean, if you have nothing of value to say, why even make a comment? Just block me and move on, mate.

    Or, I don't know, engage and tell say why you think this comment was stupid?

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    I'll gladly take over. The statement is stupid because it is already well known across the board that Microsoft is, by all intents and purposes, a malware developer. The Linux kernel on the other hand, and therefore Linux distros (most of them anyway), by being open source, at least give you the ability to look at the code and see if something IA broken, assuming you have the knowledge and the will, evidently.

    Now, blocking you when you're evidently on Lemmy to spread misinformation, be it of your own will or because you were planted (irrelevant) would be a disservice to people that come in here to interact in ways that may help them escape the grasp big tech and governments currently have on them.

    This is not Twitter (or X) where most people just follow the "normy" trends. In here most of us are all too aware of moat of the truth out there, and keep digging ro help each other have the best life we can in these technologically dark times.

    So, if you don't want your easily disproven bullshit comments countered and being downvoted to the point that people will just scroll past your shit, you're going ro have ro block us. Otherwise, keep them coming, any of us will knock down your sheep-like pushes with sound logic and facts each and every time. Of course, if your comments are accurate, they will be upvoted as well. Cause and effect, you know?

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  • [–] -3 points 4 months ago

    The statement is stupid because it is already well known across the board that Microsoft is, by all intents and purposes, a malware developer

    Hahahahahaha, and you call my comments "stupid"? XD

    OK, I'm not even reading the rest, mate. I get it! I really do - "Microsoft bad!", that's all there is to it for you. There's no discussion to be had here, unless someone is also a member of the cult, and then everyone can chant "Microsoft bad! Microsoft bad!".

    Weak sauce, mate. Cheers!

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    How many more people need to tell you exactly why your comments are 'stupid'? I also think your comments are stupid, but more than that, I think you're planted here to throw dirt on open source software in an attempt to lead people to big tech (which is a waste of time on your part).

    Like my fellow Lemmy smart users here, your comments also piss me off, just a bit, but there's going ro be some people here that are looking for reasons and ways to get away from MS, Google, Apple and all other bullshit malware and spyware corporations, and I want to be able to counter bullshit like yours by clarifying how wrong those are and why, so blocking you is not the beat course of action for me. You are, however, welcome to block me, and I will stop following your ill-intended comments to counter them then.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago

    No OS is free of exploits, and exploit counts are not a useful metric. So if, for example, *BSD has a lower exploit count than a common Linux distro, part of the reason is that hardly anyone actually uses BSD, so why bother attacking it?

    Just keep your OS patched.

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