Linux is All Set to Disable Microsoft's RNDIS Drivers (UPDATED)
Microsoft's RNDIS protocol, short for Remote Network Driver Interface Specification, is a proprietary USB protocol for virtual Ethernet functionality on computers.
The most common use case of this would be using your phone's mobile network to connect to the internet on your computer via USB, also known as Tethering.
Even though it mainly works on Windows, it has been part of the Linux kernel for a while now.
But that is set to change soon.
UPDATE
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Linux community presses for RNDIS to be marked as broken
The next Linux kernel cycle we could see upstream disable their driver support for Microsoft's Remote Network Driver Interface Specification (RNDIS) protocol due to security concerns.
RNDIS is the proprietary protocol used atop USB for virtual Ethernet functionality but its support outside of Microsoft Windows has been mixed. It is not y used in cross-platform environments and due to security concerns the upstream Linux kernel is looking to move the RNDIS kernel drivers behind the "BROKEN" Kconfig option so they effectively become disabled in future kernel builds.
Ultimately once marked as "BROKEN" for a while, the drivers will likely be eventually removed from the upstream source tree.
Original and Slashdot:
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USB: disable all RNDIS protocol driver
The Microsoft RNDIS protocol is, as designed, insecure and vulnerable on any system that uses it with untrusted hosts or devices. Because the protocol is impossible to make secure, just disable all rndis drivers to prevent anyone from using them again.
Windows only needed this for XP and newer systems, Windows systems older than that can use the normal USB class protocols instead, which do not have these problems.
Android has had this disabled for many years so there should not be any real systems that still need this.
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Linux Preparing To Disable Drivers For Microsoft's RNDIS Protocol