Servers can be backdoored by exploiting buggy motherboard controll
arstechnica.com23 points by joozio 17 hours ago
23 points by joozio 17 hours ago
*controllers
Too bad Oxide's non-BMC[0] service processor or something similar isn't available on all servers.
[0] https://oxide.computer/faq-friday/is-the-oxide-service-proce...
If you just don't plug in the BMC network port, you effectively have this. But people do plug in the BMC network port because it's extremely useful.
And then you have firmwares which switch to 'in-band-management' for convenience, if they detect that.
If you don't disable that, and sometimes even then.
Making that shit available on your general uplink.
Reasonable environments don't allow BMC access from the normal LAN, and instead have a protected LAN segment for the BMC's NIC, so the risk typically minimal as it requires breaching a secure control network. It's bad to have insecure hardware, but defense-in-depth and proper network design makes compromise from it much more unlikely.
There is a a server I have whose host provides a VPN for customers onto the BMC network. I don't know if they are checking which IP address I access through the VPN, and I don't really want to find out lest I get terminated.
There's another one from a host that just has it open to the internet. I bet you'd find a bunch by scanning the internet.
Thats why I just want upstream OpenBMC support and redfish