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Purism Plans and Strategy Against Back Doors

Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Thursday 31st of January 2019 09:35:17 PM Filed under
Linux
Security
  • Purism Origin Story – Purism

    One of the most common questions we get asked is why I started Purism. And given the growing importance of Purism’s mission amid the barrage of news about how large tech companies are surveilling and exposing their users, it seemed like an opportune time to share our origin story, and why I felt it was important to create this alternative to the status quo.

    When my first daughter was born, in 2007, her birth had a profound impact on me. Like many parents, I was instantly catapulted into a stance of protection over my child, and felt the weight of responsibility for this little person’s life.

    My second child was born 20 months later in 2009, only multiplying the impact my decisions would make on our family.

  • Purism Plans To Expand & Offer Ethical Subscription Services

    If the folks at Purism weren't busy enough working on their Librem 5 Linux smartphone initiative and adjoining projects like creating a new software app store, they also are eyeing an entrance into offering "ethical" subscription services and ultimately expand into other areas.

    Purism founder Todd Weaver has written a blog post about the origin of Purism and attributing it to the digital security/privacy for his children. While recapping the history and milestones hit thus far, he mentions they plan to follow-up with the Librem 5 smartphone and app store with "a subscription of ethical services, so everybody can join in the fun." Then the last item on his business plan is just to "Expand."

  • Tamper-Evident Boot with Heads

    Some of the earliest computer viruses attacked the boot sector—that bit of code at the beginning of the hard drive in the Master Boot Record that allowed you to boot into your operating system. The reasons for this have to do with stealth and persistence. Viruses on the filesystem itself would be erased if users re-installed their operating systems, but if they didn't erase the boot sector as part of the re-install process, boot sector viruses could stick around and re-infect the operating system.

    Antivirus software vendors ultimately added the ability to scan the boot sector for known viruses, so the problem was solved, right? Unfortunately, as computers, operating systems and BIOSes became more sophisticated, so did the boot-sector attacks. Modern attacks take over before the OS is launched and infect the OS itself, so when you try to search for the attack through the OS, the OS tells you everything is okay.

    [...]

    To understand why having a secure boot process matters so much, it's useful to understand one of the most common threats on a Linux system: rootkits. A rootkit is a piece of software attackers can use to exploit vulnerabilities in the kernel or other software on the system that has root privileges, so it can turn normal user-level access into root-level access. This ability to escalate to root privileges is important, because although in the old days, all network services ran as root, these days, servers more often run as regular users. If attackers find a flaw in a network service and exploit it so they are able to run commands locally, they will only be able to run those commands as the same user. The rootkit allows them to turn those local user privileges into root privileges, whereby they then can move on to the next step, which is installing backdoors into your system, so they can get back in later undetected.

»

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