Possible hardware backdoors

[jtx71]

Hi all!

I've recently seen a video where a hacker holds a conversation about possible hardware backdoors in some pcs and other devices, mainly in the processor but also in more parts. Those backdoors would come with an OS preinstalled that could spy you.

My question is: if that is the case, how secure would be a wallet that you generate in those devices?

Would an electrum wallet that you generate with Tails OS and completely offline be safe?

thx!

[1714289162]

1714289162

[1714289162]

1714289162

[1714289162]

1714289162

[1714289162]

1714289162

[1714289162]

1714289162

[1714289162]

1714289162

[ripemdhash]

it can be safe then and only then when :
1. No one has access to your hardware
2. hardware is offline.


if it is online...you know..


Online - I mean Blouetooth, WIFI, LAN, 5G, WIDI, and direct connect.

Few years ago I have read about GPS connection- it can be virused too , and their had "connect". at the time it was weird for me. but now, no. Everything is signal, code.

[jtx71]

it can be safe then and only then when :
1. No one has access to your hardware
2. hardware is offline.


if it is online...you know..


Online - I mean Blouetooth, WIFI, LAN, 5G, WIDI, and direct connect.

Few years ago I have read about GPS connection- it can be virused too , and their had "connect". at the time it was weird for me. but now, no. Everything is signal, code.

hi

what if the router is on but you are not connected?

thank u!

[ripemdhash]

are you sure that you are not connected? depends what kind system you have.

it can be for user not connected, but for system is a idle.

there is no real one answer. depends on whether you believe corporations that they want your good

We live in times of surveillance, both covert and overt

[digaran]

Do you have any factual evidence to back your claim? If this is speculation and imagination/science fiction then no need to think about it, show some real world proof other than youtube video.

[ranochigo]

Totally possible. In fact,  NSA has routinely inserted backdoors into computers and various devices to conduct mass surveillance. As such, it would be very much possible that there is some form of backdoor in devices that you interact with on a daily basis. I think the crux of the issue is whether your Bitcoins would be stolen or your privacy would be compromised in this case.

The answer to that is probably not, and nothing is ever completely safe.

Your hardware can get compromised by an evil maid attack because there is probably not a good way to ensure the integrity of your supply chain and thus it becomes an attack vector. However, keep in mind that most of your hardware wallet and devices are shipped in tamper-proof packaging which helps to mitigate this risk significantly.

If you're using your wallet on a normal air-gapped computer, then the possibility is slim. The entropy of your keys are unlikely to be compromised if you properly verify the installation. An airgap makes it a lot harder for information to be transferred and your keys to be compromised.

In an air-gap, your wallet probably utilizes counter-measures against side-channel attacks which makes it difficult for your keys to be compromised without your knowledge (cold boot attack, signal analysis etc). So it would be difficult as well.

Tl;dr: Is your airgap perfect? No. But the attack vector would be reduced by so much such that it becomes so difficult to compromise your keys such that it probably isn't worth it for any attacker.

[Charles-Tim]

Would an electrum wallet that you generate with Tails OS and completely offline be safe?

It would be safe if it remains airgapped. I do not know if it would be completely safe if you are using USB stick to transfer signed transactions, but It is safe if you are using QR code for that. No information leaves the airgapped device than the signed transaction. Airgapped device means that no internet connection and no other means of interaction that can make the spyware to work out. There has been no wallet that is safer like airgapped devices.

The airgapped device may be safe, but how about the wallet you are using to make transactions. You will need a watch-only wallet for broadcasting any transaction signed on on the airgapped device. If the device that you have the airgapped device is having the spyware, that still only means that you will be affected. The airgapped device is not affect, but the watch-only wallet is affected.

That is why it is good to use open source operating system like Linux.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Would an electrum wallet that you generate with Tails OS and completely offline be safe?

No wallet or security set up in the world is 100% immune to attacks, but this is about the safest as you can get. You need to ensure that "completely offline" means a dedicated and permanently airgapped device. It should be airgapped at that hardware level, with cards/modules for WiFi, Bluetooth, etc., physically removed from the device. Also make sure you verify Tails before you use it. You can also pull the hard drive entirely and just run from a live CD or USB.

If you don't trust the entropy being generated, then use a combination of von Neumann's coin flips, the SHA256 function on Tails, and the BIP39 word list to generate your own entropy and seed phrase manually.

[DaveF]

Not something worth worrying about. If your machine is disconnected from the Internet, that's all you need to know. Network cable unplugged and Wi-Fi password not entered.

That's all you really have to worry about. Yes, in theory it could do something that would have a way to store an old Wi-Fi password that you entered into something else so this mystery device could then connect to the Internet and do something. The odds of that really happening on your average home desktop computer or somewhere between slim and none.

Nobody wants to admit it, but I keep telling people the same thing, I could hand you a totally compromised virus infected PC. And I could hand you a totally clean secure PC. The biggest vulnerability on both of them it's still you. Not all the vulnerabilities on the infected machine.

-Dave

[satscraper]

I've recently seen a video where a hacker holds a conversation about possible hardware backdoors in some pcs and other devices, mainly in the processor but also in more parts. Those backdoors would come with an OS preinstalled that could spy you.

Yeah, and the irony of the situation is that one can get such hardware backdoors right  off the shelf. One of the latest case is the sell of  millions of GigaByte products with backdoor in firmware.

My question is: if that is the case, how secure would be a wallet that you generate in those devices?

Not secure at all. Potential treats of such backdoor: hijacking of clipboard content, keystrokes catching by keyloggers installed against your will, theft of wallet file, to name only a few.

Would an electrum wallet that you generate with Tails OS and completely offline be safe?

Yeah, it would  be safe being installed on  airgapped machine.

[digaran]

Such backdoors exist in firmware, not necessarily in hardware, though there is only rumors, that's because these backdoors are being used for big targets like using them to spy on nations military bases, and sensitive locations where secrets exist, they would never use it on populations at random.

Windows xp is one of the safest operating systems to use in order to avoid getting backdoored!😅

[o_e_l_e_o]

Yeah, it would  be safe being installed on  airgapped machine.

If you are think that hardware backdoors are a realistic attack vector against you, then airgapping is not enough as you also need to be concerned about the malicious hardware returning compromised random numbers or entropy and therefore generating weak seed phrases and private keys. It's incredibly unlikely, yes, but if this is in your threat model then you will need to generate your entropy and seed phrase using another method, which is why I mentioned coin flips above.

[Cricktor]

Windows xp is one of the safest operating systems to use in order to avoid getting backdoored!

I hope for your mind's sanity that this is only a joke and frankly it isn't even a good one. Just don't use an OS that was widely used in terms of user percentage AND doesn't receive any fixes anymore, where EOL applies. You can use it offline of course but why would you bother to use M$ Windows crap for that. (Not interested in OS flame wars...)

For crypto I recommend a Linux base as there's less malware attraction to those, compared to M$ Windows. If you like golden caves you can "punish" yourself and your fiat wallet with Apple's ecosystem. Just my opinion, don't take it too seriously, I'm just no Apple fanboy. If you like it, that's your decission, I'm not here to judge.

...

Well said, I'm with you. No need to fuel paranoia. Problem is only that IT noobs have no clue. For them it's better there's no wireless card in their device that could accidently be turned on.

[satscraper]

Yeah, it would  be safe being installed on  airgapped machine.

If you are think that hardware backdoors are a realistic attack vector against you, then airgapping is not enough as you also need to be concerned about the malicious hardware returning compromised random numbers or entropy and therefore generating weak seed phrases and private keys. It's incredibly unlikely, yes, but if this is in your threat model then you will need to generate your entropy and seed phrase using another method, which is why I mentioned coin flips above.

Agreed, but it would be highly specific backdoor focused on narrow community for which a true randomness  really matters. I think, it is highly unlikely to found such backdoor in computer components from  global manufactures oriented on mass production.

Nevertheless, in my interaction  with Bitcoin I rely on Passport 2, so, hardware backdoor  is  not  realistic attack vector against me.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Nevertheless, in my interaction  with Bitcoin I rely on Passport 2, so, hardware backdoor  is  not  realistic attack vector against me.

Why not? How could you tell if there was indeed some backdoor on the hardware in your device?

Don't get me wrong - as I said above, I think such attacks are incredibly unlikely and even someone as paranoid as me does not flip coins for every new seed phrase (although I do have some manually generated seed phrases). But if we are talking about hardware backdoors then influencing your entropy is a better backdoor than stealing your private keys or changing your clipboard. It is significantly harder to detect and works regardless of whether the device is airgapped or not.

[ranochigo]

Airgapped device means that no internet connection and no other means of interaction that can make the spyware to work out. There has been no wallet that is safer like airgapped devices.

The airgapped device may be safe, but how about the wallet you are using to make transactions. You will need a watch-only wallet for broadcasting any transaction signed on on the airgapped device. If the device that you have the airgapped device is having the spyware, that still only means that you will be affected. The airgapped device is not affect, but the watch-only wallet is affected.

That is why it is good to use open source operating system like Linux.

Not necessarily. Most of the airgapped devices are not sufficiently hardened against sidechannel attack vectors, so in technically, they are definitely not the safest form of cold storage. ColdCard, which I have been using now can offer both and generally hardware wallets are sufficiently safe and fool-proof.

Any software/hardware can suffer from having insufficient entropy and thus there are more steps and precautions (validations, sanitization, etc) to take than to just run your wallet on an airgapped device.

[Cricktor]

It would be safe if it remains airgapped. I do not know if it would be completely safe if you are using USB stick to transfer signed transactions, but It is safe if you are using QR code for that. No information leaves the airgapped device than the signed transaction. Airgapped device means that no internet connection and no other means of interaction that can make the spyware to work out. There has been no wallet that is safer like airgapped devices.

Airgapped and sole communications via QR codes doesn't prevent possibility of leaking of information as has been discussed in this thread: Hardware wallets can steal your seed!

Not everybody buys this attack vector, but to me it is a valid and possible attack vector nonetheless. It is particularly interesting because it would work even airgapped!

The Nonce Covert Channel Attack isn't too exotic and surely a problem with software and hardware wallets that are opaque blackbox closed-source pieces of crap. This attack would make it possible to slowly leak pieces of your seed and bury them in signatures in transactions recorded in the blockchain from such a malicious wallet and you wouldn't even notice it until it is too late. The signing cold wallet could perfectly be offline and airgapped, it would still be able to leak all necesarry data within a certain number of transactions. It might take a while but the attacker has time and can wait. He can put some recognition pattern in the nonce to find his "rigged" transactions. If you're covert enough, likely no one would notice or have you ever checked the randomness of nonces for signatures?

[satscraper]

Nevertheless, in my interaction  with Bitcoin I rely on Passport 2, so, hardware backdoor  is  not  realistic attack vector against me.

How could you tell if there was indeed some backdoor on the hardware in your device?

Noway.

BTW, I have raised the similar concern in one of my topics.

As to Passport 2 . I  rely on its openness regarding both hardware (that assembled from components available virtually at every  corner ) and software. Nevertheless, I have asked them to share "the  p-values (relevant to Passport's TRNG) for each test from NIST suite" to evaluate the degree of randomness produced by their device.

[NotATether]

Such backdoors exist in firmware, not necessarily in hardware, though there is only rumors, that's because these backdoors are being used for big targets like using them to spy on nations military bases, and sensitive locations where secrets exist, they would never use it on populations at random.

Hardware is in fact a big target for backdoors because a vulnerability in hardware cannot be patched without manufacturing a new version. That's how Meltdown (and to some extent Spectre) proliferated. It's just that hardware is a lot harder to bug if you're a bad actor in the supply chain, than firmware, which is pretty hard to notice unless signed firmware images are utilized.

[BlackHatCoiner]

If you don't feel confident with using a specific hardware device, consider setting up a multi-sig wallet, as that would mitigate the risk.

If you don't trust the entropy being generated, then use a combination of von Neumann's coin flips, the SHA256 function on Tails, and the BIP39 word list to generate your own entropy and seed phrase manually.

What's after that, really? Backdoor for altering the k value in Bitcoin transactions? It's trivial to verify that the entropy from coin flips creates a certain seed phrase, but it's really hard to do that for every single transaction made by the specific wallet. (Just because there is no standard application for that matter, so you'll have to do it manually, which is difficult)