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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 25 2012 @ 03:44 PM EDT |
> If the boot sequence has to signature-check the entire OS,
> running Windows Update might take a wee while...
My understanding of the way MacOS does its signature checking,
is the signature is checked anytime a file is written to. If it fails
that file is flagged as bad, and will throw an error/warning
next time it is read. But, yeah, another layer of bloat that could
be avoided by designing security in from the bottom.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 25 2012 @ 11:19 PM EDT |
I'm not 100% sure as I haven't done all the research on this but the secure boot
itself just makes sure the bootloader is good. But the trick is that the
Microsoft bootloader which has been signed will have code in it that will check
some core parts of the windows system are signed before booting it. So in this
way the security is carried down. In theory then these known good core parts of
the windows system could then repeat the process on down the chain. For example
it will check all device drivers to make sure they are signed. At this point
virus's and root kits are restricted to only run as user apps and not as part of
the core system. This is one of the reasons for secure boot.
In the scary future world this could be extended to require all applications to
be signed as well (Metro apps might get this requirement!). Eventually we only
run what is safe for us...
The interesting thing I don't understand right now is that many linux developers
are now talking about getting their boot loaders signed as well so they will
work with these new machines easily without going into bios and disabling
secureboot or loading custom keys. Once many boot loaders are out there and
signed what is to stop these loading a small OS that just loads windows with no
more signing checks? Then someone can develop a new root kit that instead of
just adding something to the MBR instead installs a new signed bootloader that
boots the rootkit which then loads your now hacked windows.
Maybe there is a catch for this situation but it will be interesting to see how
things play out.
Michael[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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