December 2024 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

AMD’s trusted execution environment blown wide open by new BadRAM attack
by Peter Reutemann 11 Dec '24

11 Dec '24

'One of the oldest maxims in hacking is that once an attacker has physical access to a device, it’s game over for its security. The basis is sound. It doesn’t matter how locked down a phone, computer, or other machine is; if someone intent on hacking it gains the ability to physically manipulate it, the chances of success are all but guaranteed. In the age of cloud computing, this widely accepted principle is no longer universally true. Some of the world’s most sensitive information—health records, financial account information, sealed legal documents, and the like—now often resides on servers that receive day-to-day maintenance from unknown administrators working in cloud centers thousands of miles from the companies responsible for safeguarding it. In response, chipmakers have begun baking protections into their silicon to provide assurances that even if a server has been physically tampered with or infected with malware, sensitive data funneled through virtual machines can’t be accessed without an encryption key that’s known only to the VM administrator. Under this scenario, admins inside the cloud provider, law enforcement agencies with a court warrant, and hackers who manage to compromise the server are out of luck. On Tuesday, an international team of researchers unveiled BadRAM, a proof-of-concept attack that completely undermines security assurances that chipmaker AMD makes to users of one of its most expensive and well-fortified microprocessor product lines. Starting with the AMD Epyc 7003 processor, a feature known as SEV-SNP—short for Secure Encrypted Virtualization and Secure Nested Paging—has provided the cryptographic means for certifying that a VM hasn’t been compromised by any sort of backdoor installed by someone with access to the physical machine running it. If a VM has been backdoored, the cryptographic attestation will fail and immediately alert the VM admin of the compromise. Or at least that’s how SEV-SNP is designed to work. BadRAM is an attack that a server admin can carry out in minutes, using either about $10 of hardware, or in some cases, software only, to cause DDR4 or DDR5 memory modules to misreport during bootup the amount of memory capacity they have. From then on, SEV-SNP will be permanently made to suppress the cryptographic hash attesting its integrity even when the VM has been badly compromised. “BadRAM completely undermines trust in AMD's latest Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV-SNP) technology, which is widely deployed by major cloud providers, including Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure,” members of the research team wrote in an email. “BadRAM for the first time studies the security risks of bad RAM—rogue memory modules that deliberately provide false information to the processor during startup. We show how BadRAM attackers can fake critical remote attestation reports and insert undetectable backdoors into _any_ SEV-protected VM.”' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/12/new-badram-attack-ne… Cheers, Peter

1 0

Linux Mint Dethrones MX Linux As the Most Popular Distro On DistroWatch
by Peter Reutemann 11 Dec '24

11 Dec '24

'Linux Mint has reclaimed its position as the top-ranked Linux distribution on DistroWatch, dethroning MX Linux. The latest page hit rankings, which reflect the popularity of distributions among DistroWatch users, place Linux Mint in first place with 2,412 hits per day. MX Linux, previously the reigning champ, now sits in second with 2,280 hits.' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/24/12/10/1754230 Cheers, Peter

1 0

Linux Kernel 6.12 Confirmed As LTS, Will Be Supported For 'Multiple Years'
by Peter Reutemann 10 Dec '24

10 Dec '24

'Renowned Linux kernel developer Greg Kroah-Hartman announced Thursday that the Linux 6.12 kernel series has been officially marked as LTS (Long Term Support) on the kernel.org website with a predicted life expectancy of at least two years. Linux kernel 6.12 was released on November 17th, 2024, and introduces new features like real-time "PREEMPT_RT" support, a new scheduler called sched_ext, and DRM panic messages as QR codes, as well as numerous new and updated drivers for better hardware support... Linux kernel 6.12 joins the many other long-term support kernel branches, namely Linux 6.6 LTS, Linux 6.1 LTS, Linux 5.15 LTS, Linux 5.10 LTS, and Linux 5.4 LTS. Apart from the latter, the rest of them, including Linux kernel 6.12, will be officially supported until the end of December 2026. Hopefully, Linux kernel 6.12 will be supported for more than two years as the kernel maintainers usually aim for four years of support for a new LTS kernel, especially if there's demand from hardware manufacturers and other companies that aim to use a long-term supported kernel in their devices. ' -- source: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/24/12/09/0125219 Cheers, Peter

1 0

migration of wlug list
by Peter Reutemann 06 Dec '24

06 Dec '24

Hi everyone Thanks to Elliot Hathaway from TechnologyWise working hard behind the scenes, we now have an alternative mailman instance to keep our wlug mailing list going forward. As a reminder, the university server will be shut down next week Friday, December 13th. Thanks to Daniel Lawson, a former WLUG president, and now owner of the wlug.org.nz domain, the list will be a sub-domain under the wlug.org.nz domain. What is next? On Monday, December 9th, we will do a final migration of members and archives from the current mailman instance to the new one. Once that is done, you will receive an invitation to subscribe to the new list. If you want to continue using the list, then please accept it. This might also be a good opportunity to revisit your password and replace it with a strong one (passwords won't be migrated!). I will then make a final post on the old mailing list that the migration has finished with a link to the new one (just in case your invitation ended up in spam). After that, the old mailing list will be disabled, i.e., members removed and no longer accepting new member sign-ups. Have a good weekend! Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://profiles.waikato.ac.nz/peter.reutemann http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

1 0

Linux Making Inroads In PC Gaming
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 06 Dec '24

06 Dec '24

You’d think that PC gaming was the last nearly unassailable bastion in the Windows world, where potential users who were willing to consider Linux would be few and far between. Reinforcing this idea, Valve tried to bring out its Linux-based “SteamOS” a few years ago, and failed. But then, the Steam Deck pioneered a new market segment, namely PC gaming in a handheld form factor. And here, Valve has found success with Linux -- to the point where the Windows-based competitors look overpriced and underperforming -- in short, just plain clunky. This in spite of the natural advantage of Windows in offering better compatibility with games specifically written for Windows. Now we hear that Valve is having another try at offering SteamOS for third-party hardware <https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/12/the-return-of-steam-machines-valve-r…>. The article suggests, and I strongly suspect it is so, that this is to allow those competitors to the Steam Deck to offer a better OS than Windows on their products. Some of them have already made noises to this effect. The Steam Deck is already so far ahead of its Windows-based competitors, that offering serious competition to the Steam Deck will only leave Windows further behind in the lurch -- further cementing the dominance of Linux in this new market segment.

1 0

testing the new list
by Peter Reutemann 05 Dec '24

05 Dec '24

blah blah blah -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, Hamilton, NZ Mobile +64 22 190 2375 https://profiles.waikato.ac.nz/peter.reutemann http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

3 2

Trying Out Bluesky
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 04 Dec '24

04 Dec '24

Just signed up at Bluesky <https://bsky.app/> earlier this morning. Did some searches for stuff on Python, Blender, Linux, NZ etc. Already got into reasonably civil discussions with a bunch of people on related topics, and got some likes on my comments. Feels a lot like Twitter from, say, a decade ago. No doubt there are topics with much greater traffic than those I’ve mentioned. Possibly even some loonies and other questionable content, if you look hard enough. This seems to be a Fediverse-type system, connected via open-source protocols/software. I think there are people running their own servers, it’s not all on bluesky.social.

1 0

OpenStreetMap Migrates To Debian 12 For Enhanced Performance
by Peter Reutemann 04 Dec '24

04 Dec '24

'OpenStreetMap (OSM), the collaborative project to create a free and open map of the world, has migrated its servers to Debian 12 (Bookworm) after 18 years on Ubuntu. This transition brings with it a number of benefits, including improved speed and closer ties with the Debian community. Why the Switch? The decision to migrate was driven by a number of factors, with performance being a key consideration. OSM's infrastructure relies heavily on physical hardware, and the team encountered significant I/O performance issues with certain kernel versions on systems using NVMe storage. Debian 12 offered a solution by allowing the installation of backported kernels, effectively resolving these performance bottlenecks. Another motivating factor was the desire to align more closely with the maintainers of the software packages that OSM relies on. Debian boasts a strong reputation for package maintenance, and many Debian maintainers are deeply invested in the software they support, ensuring prompt attention to critical bugs. A Smooth Transition The migration process was facilitated by OSM's infrastructure management practices. Their server setup is largely code-driven, and rigorous testing is performed using tools like Test Kitchen and Inspec. By adding Debian as a test target platform, the team was able to identify and address any compatibility issues early on. The required code changes were relatively minor, primarily involving adjustments to package names and configuration filenames. The transition involved the following key steps: - Frontend Server Migration: OSM successfully migrated its frontend servers to Debian 12, resulting in a Ruby version upgrade from 3.0 to 3.1. This upgrade allowed for a corresponding upgrade to the Ruby on Rails framework used for the www.openstreetmap.org website. - Networking Management Shift: OSM transitioned from using netplan, the default network management tool in Ubuntu, to systemd-networkd, Debian's preferred tool. This change streamlined network management across both Ubuntu and Debian systems, ensuring consistency. - Custom Package Management: OSM adopted aptly to manage their own Debian package repository. This shift from Ubuntu's Personal Package Archives (PPA) was driven by the need to manage pre-release or custom patches of OSM software. A Shared Community The move to Debian also reflects the strong overlap between the OSM and Debian communities. Many OSM contributors are also active within the Debian ecosystem, fostering a shared understanding and collaborative spirit.' -- source: https://ostechnix.com/openstreetmap-migrates-to-debian-12-for-enhanced-perf… Cheers, Peter

2 1

Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 Launches as a Modular Version of Raspberry Pi 5
by Peter Reutemann 02 Dec '24

02 Dec '24

'The Raspberry Pi Foundation announced today the general availability of Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 as the fifth update to their Raspberry Pi CM (Compute Module) series. Designed as a modular version of the Raspberry Pi 5 single-board computer, the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 is powered by a 2.4GHz Quad-Core 64-bit ARM Cortex-A76 processor and it’s available with 2GB, 4GB, or 8GB of LPDDR4X-4267 SDRAM memory, as well as with 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB of MLC eMMC storage. Raspberry Pi CM 5 also comes with a powerful VideoCore VII graphics card supporting OpenGL ES 3.1 and Vulkan 1.3 standards, a 4Kp60 HEVC decoder, dual 4Kp60 HDMI display output, 2 × 4-lane MIPI camera/display transceivers, and 30 GPIOs supporting 1.8V or 3.3V operation. Connectivity-wise, the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5 supports a PCIe 2.0 x1 interface for fast peripherals, two USB 3.0 interfaces for supporting simultaneous 5Gbps operation, Gigabit Ethernet with IEEE 1588 support, and optional dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0. The Raspberry Pi CM5 IO board features a standard 40-pin GPIO connector, two full-size HDMI 2.0 connectors, two 4-lane MIPI DSI/CSI-2 FPC connectors, two USB 3.0 connectors, a Gigabit Ethernet jack with PoE+ support, an M.2 M-key PCIe socket, a microSD card socket, an RTC battery socket, and a 4-pin fan connector. Despite its small design, Raspberry Pi CM 5 also supports various peripherals, including UART, SPI, I2C, I2S, SDIO, and PWM. On top of that, Compute Module 5 is mechanically compatible with its predecessor, Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4, but provides additional stability with four M2.5 mounting holes at the corners of the board.' -- source: https://9to5linux.com/raspberry-pi-compute-module-5-launches-as-a-modular-v… Cheers, Peter

1 0

Code found online exploits LogoFAIL to install Bootkitty Linux backdoor
by Peter Reutemann 02 Dec '24

02 Dec '24

'Researchers have discovered malicious code circulating in the wild that hijacks the earliest stage boot process of Linux devices by exploiting a year-old firmware vulnerability when it remains unpatched on affected models. The critical vulnerability is one of a constellation of exploitable flaws discovered last year and given the name LogoFAIL. These exploits are able to override an industry-standard defense known as Secure Boot and execute malicious firmware early in the boot process. Until now, there were no public indications that LogoFAIL exploits were circulating in the wild. The discovery of code downloaded from an Internet-connected web server changes all that. While there are no indications the public exploit is actively being used, it is reliable and polished enough to be production-ready and could pose a threat in the real world in the coming weeks or months. Both the LogoFAIL vulnerabilities and the exploit found on-line were discovered by Binarly, a firm that helps customers identify and secure vulnerable firmware.' -- source: https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/11/code-found-online-exploits-logofai… Cheers, Peter

1 0