Subj : Hacking Firmware
To   : All
From : warmfuzzy
Date : Fri May 25 2018 17:05:35

When you think of hacking computer systems you probably think of exploiting
software to give you access to something on the computer, perhaps loading a
trojan onto windows with remote control capbilities over the Internet.  That
kind of software can be produced by a team of hackers in about a year from
start to finish.  However what if you're really sneaky?  What if you modified
the firmware (code on hardware devices) on memory that is EEPROM
(electronically eraseabable programmable read only memory).  This type of
read-only memory is not actually read only, but can be modified, deleted, or
completely replaced.  Imagine that you control (physically have in your
possession) a hardware-based network intrusion detection system or firewall
or network switch... It is possible to have that piece of hardware
communicate though the network a copy of everything that is going on inside
of the network, or some select traffic, to an outside source and because it is
hardware-based no one would be the wiser that anything was wrong.  This would
create a back-channel of information flow to you without it easably being
traced or detected at all.  It is because of this possibility that the
American government doesn't use hardware sourced from China or Russia.  This
type of threat is real, though not often used due to its complexity.  How do
you detect intrusions when your IDS (intrusion detection system) is itself
the source for those intrusions.  Something to think about...

Best regards,
warmfuzzy

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