Originally posted by RealNC
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NVIDIA Linux Driver Hack Gives You Root Access
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Originally posted by droidhacker View PostThere is actually a huge difference between that and blob drivers. The problem with blob drivers is that they offer the potential for kernel compromise. With a bad chunk of firmware, the firmware itself is restricted to the device on which it is loaded. The kernel still needs some kind of driver to interface with the hardware/blobfirmware, hence that kernel driver protects the kernel from the bad blob firmware.
At least to some degree.
Originally posted by droidhacker View PostThink of it like this;
The chip itself on the device is some kind of undocumented magic box. What difference does it make if the magic box is entirely physical hardware and no part programmed firmware? You still don't know what its doing.
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Originally posted by ssam View PostI suspect a malicious graphics card could do a lot of bad even with a open driver in the kernel. at the very least it could capture private information from the display, but possible also read and inject things in main RAM or on the PCI bus.
but how safe can that be as command streams need to be passed to a kernel component?
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Originally posted by entropy View PostWebGL is calling..? Some Browsers use sandbox-like approaches AFAIK,
but how safe can that be as command streams need to be passed to a kernel component?
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Originally posted by droidhacker View PostThere is actually a huge difference between that and blob drivers. The problem with blob drivers is that they offer the potential for kernel compromise. With a bad chunk of firmware, the firmware itself is restricted to the device on which it is loaded. The kernel still needs some kind of driver to interface with the hardware/blobfirmware, hence that kernel driver protects the kernel from the bad blob firmware.
KindMind notes coverage in The Register on a researcher who has developed a firmware-based rootkit that resides in a network card. Here is the developer's blog entry. "Guillaume Delugré, a reverse engineer at French security firm Sogeti ESEC, was able to develop proof-of-concept code after stud...
A firmware blob can read/modify any memory region with DMA. No driver is needed at all for this to work.
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Originally posted by droidhacker View PostThere is actually a huge difference between that and blob drivers. The problem with blob drivers is that they offer the potential for kernel compromise.
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