Boot process hacked in Windows 8

I found one article on internet which says that the boot process is hacked and that provides complete root access to the system. I found this new on many of the articles and so thought that I must share this over here.

I also found that the Austrian security expert Peter Kleissner claims to have cracked the boot process of Windows 8. He succeeded with a Windows-8 computer on which Developer Preview Windows 8 was installed to solicit system privileges. With a 14 K Byte boot kit with the name Stoned Lite he could bypass the User Account Control that is enabled. After the start of the bootloader partition itself latches onto the boot kit into the boot of Windows 8 and then manipulated the system. I hope that Microsoft will do something for this.

He demonstrates that how he can start after the infection with the bootkit a command line with system privileges, without beating the UAC alert. It can then be run at any arbitrary malicious code. Actually, Windows should be protected against malware eight tries to infect the system already at the start. Because Windows 8 only runs signed code and should not start with manipulating files. He succeed only on a PC with a traditional BIOS.

The Austrian security expert Peter Kleissner has cracked the boot process of Windows 8 and it creates a boot kit called Stoned Lite to provide it on a PC with the Windows System Developer Preview 8 rights. Here he deals with only 14 Kbytes bootkit the UAC turned on. Kleissner demonstrated the hack to a security conference in India on the Web, there is already a short video showing the action on the PC. Kleissner also has a document published in which he discusses the development of bootkits.

I have seen that video and I would like to tell you that in the video the exact configuration of the Windows-8 engine is not visible, but Kleissner has an installation on a PC with BIOS. There, he with his boot kit patches some Windows system files and exploits a BIOS in order to load the malicious files. This is Microsoft's trump card in Windows 8 but is to support Secure Boot that is a function of the BIOS successor UEFI and prevents malware stuck on startup before the operating system loads. Other than this, I would also like to tell you that the hack of Kleissner would not work with UEFI under the hood because unsigned code leads UEFI usually not even out. The exceptions are probable and the user must enter an additional password. The UEFI code itself is signed because manipulations are not possible. Kleissner goes into its own short document to UEFI and is of the opinion that it would also be possible because there is bootkits for UEFI write.

Sorry, but this is nothing really new. If you have physical access to a system, you can always somehow gain access to both Windows and Linux. Then you could only change UEFI or anything. Therefore, if you are booting from CD, USB, etc then this can be prevented fully effective.

The hacker said his malicious code does not attack the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (replacing the BIOS in Windows 8), whose mission is to prevent malware from being loaded into the system during startup. Instead, it is the oldest code that is used. As a result, Secure Boot is not directly attacked, but bypassed.

The previous versions of Windows had specifically experienced with security problems again and again. Security expert Peter Kleissner from Austria was now impressive as the Microsoft will also have complications with this Windows 8 . Using the Lite Stoned bootkit namely the hacker has cracked the boot process of Windows 8 and this means that he could establish with a conventional PC system privileges.

It was disclosed that the boot kit was installed on a PC with BIOS. Then the program called Stoned Lite is used to patch some Windows system files. The loading of files happens almost by itself, which returns the security expert Kleissner exclusively on a serious security hole in the BIOS. Meanwhile there is already a successor but with UEFI BIOS, this is to be found but by far not at all new appliances. The Lite version of the Stoned boot kit in this case was not possible because UEFI is blocked.

Hey this is very interesting new. Thanks to all for sharing this with use over here.