Attacking an offline system (was: Why trust gpg4win?)

[Peter Lebbing]

On 12/09/13 15:55, Jan wrote:
> Do you see any reasonable attack vectors? What do you think?

The moment someone plugs in a mass storage device and we're talking about
attacking his computer, I think of a manipulated file system, exploiting an
error in the file system driver of the kernel (which runs at a nice privilege
level too). I missed that vector in the discussion so far, which focussed on
manipulated files.

The filesystem is also still there with this USB-via-serial-port thingy. And on
the CD.

You can avoid a filesystem by just storing a tar archive on the storage. I don't
think that's very helpful under Windows, but under Linux, using a block device
as tar input/output is easy. Hell, it's what tar was originally made for (tape
devices) :).

That only helps for the filesystem vector, though.

Anybody still using laplink cables? ;)

(I once blew up part of a mainboard with a laplink cable. Was on a different
phase of the mains electricity than the other PC and not grounded. Gave a nice
spark.)

HTH,

Peter.

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