[ISN] Researchers hack Intel vPro security system

From: InfoSec News <alerts_at_private>
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2009 00:10:06 -0600 (CST)
http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?newsID=109058

By Robert McMillan
IDG News Service
06 January 2009

Security researchers said they've found a way to circumvent an Intel 
vPro security feature used to protect PCs and the programs that they run 
from tampering.

Invisible Things Labs researchers Rafal Wojtczuk and Joanna Rutkowska 
said they'd created software that could "compromise the integrity" of 
software loaded using the Trusted Execution Technology (TXT) that is 
part of Intel's vPro processor platform.

That's bad news, because TXT is supposed to help protect software - a 
program running within a virtual machine, for example - from being seen 
or tampered with by other programs on the machine. Formerly code-named 
LaGrande, TXT first started shipping in some Intel-based PCs last year.

Although almost no software uses the TXT technology today, the research 
could matter a lot to computer companies and government agencies that 
are thinking of using it to secure their future products.

[...]


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Received on Tue Jan 06 2009 - 22:10:06 PST

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