Jonathan Brossard also known under the username 'endrazine', is a French security hacker, engineer and a Professor of computer science at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers.[1] He is best known as a pioneer in firmware cybersecurity, having presented the first public example of a hardware backdoor.[2] The MIT Technology Review called it "undetectable and uncurable".[3] He has presented several times at conferences such as Defcon[4] and Blackhat,[5] as the Director of Security at Salesforce.
Jonathan Brossard | |
|---|---|
 Jonathan Brossard at the Defcon Conference in Las Vegas in 2016 | |
| Nationality | French |
| Known for | Hardware backdoor, Watch Dogs |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Computer science |
| Institutions | Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers |
| Website | endrazine |
Research work
editBitlocker Security
editIn 2008, Jonathan presented the first public vulnerability affecting full disk encryption software Microsoft Bitlocker.[6] at Defcon. His generic exploit also affected other full disk encryption software such as Truecrypt,[7] and BIOS firmware from Intel.[8][9]
Hardware backdooring
editIn 2012, Jonathan presented a Proof of Concept BIOS and PCI firmware malware.[10] named Rakshasa,[11] the first known[12] example of a permanent Hardware backdoor at Defcon and Blackhat.[2][3][13] The attack consisted in the inclusion of a Bootkit in firmware[14] either from the BIOS or Network cards.[15]
Microsoft Edge, Chrome, and Windows 10
editIn 2015, along with the security team at Salesforce, he presented at Blackhat the first public attacks against Microsoft Edge.[16] and the Windows 10 operating system,[17] allowing credential theft over the internet. Researchers discovered that Google Chrome was vulnerable to the very same Server Message Block vulnerability.[18][19]
Witchcraft Compiler Collection
editJonathan is the main author of the Witchcraft Compiler Collection, a reverse engineering framework presented at major conferences including Defcon, Blackhat and USENIX.[20] This framework allowing to transform an ELF binary into a shared library is available on Linux distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu or the Kali Linux distribution.[21]
Other notable research
editJonathan served as a security expert for major media outlets, for instance in the XKeyscore program[22][23] disclosed by Edward Snowden, mass surveillance programs,[24] when the NSA allegedly hacked French President Nicolas Sarkozy's emails,[25] or warning the industry about car hacking[26][27] as early as 2012.
Security hacking activities
editIn 2014 Jonathan was the main cybersecurity consultant to the Watch Dogs by Ubisoft, presenting the game to an international press audience in Chicago, with global coverage including Australia,[26] Deutschland,[28] France[29][30] or Spain.[31] In 2016, Jonathan was also the main consultant for the second opus of the franchise Watch Dogs 2 and presented it to the international press.[32][33]
In 2012, Jonathan, along with other top security researchers including Chris Valasek, Matt Suiche and Jon Oberheide submitted a bogus, computer-generated article[34] on Nmap to the Hakin9 security magazine, as a way to protest against the constant spamming of top researchers by the magazine.[35] While the stunt was praised by hackers, the response of Hakin9, legally threatening fellow Nmap author Gordon Lyon was so terrible that it earned the Pwnie Awards for most epic fail in 2013.
Conference host
editJonathan is the co-founder of international cybersecurity conferences Hackito Ergo Sum[36][37] and NoSuchCon.[38][39][29] He also sits on the review boards of the Shakacon (Honolulu, USA)[40] and Nullcon (Goa, India)[41] conferences.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "Jonathan Brossard Academic Page". Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers.
- ^ a b "Meet 'Rakshasa,' The Malware Infection Designed To Be Undetectable And Incurable". Forbes.
- ^ a b "A Computer Infection that Can Never Be Cured". MIT Technology Review.
- ^ "Defcon 2016". Defcon Conference.
- ^ "Black Hat USA 2015". Blackhat Conference.
- ^ "BitLocker, Brossard's Pre-boot Authentication Research, and the BSI". Microsoft Security. Archived from the original on 2015-07-01. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - ^ "Bypassing pre-boot authentiation passwords by instrumenting the BIOS keyboard buffer" (PDF). Defcon Conference.
- ^ "Intel Keyboard Buffer Information Disclosure Vulnerability". Intel Security.
- ^ Thirupathi, Devi (2013). "A Novel Method To Access BIOS Through Client Server Technology". International Journal of Computer Applications. 82 (2). Foundation of Computer Science (FCS), NY, USA: 15–19. Bibcode:2013IJCA...82b..15P. doi:10.5120/14087-1352.
- ^ "Difficult for PC viruses to stay invisible indefinitely". Zdnet.
- ^ "Black Hat: Researcher Demonstrates Hardware Backdoor". Dark Reading.
- ^ Matrosov, Alex (May 2019). Rootkits and Bootkits: Reversing Modern Malware and Next Generation Threats. No Starch Press. p. 259. ISBN 978-1593277161.
- ^ "Menace sur la sécurité des PC" (in French). Le Monde. 26 April 2012.
- ^ "Persistent, undetectable malware presented at Black Hat 2012". The Verge. August 2012.
- ^ "Researcher Creates Proof-of-concept Malware That Infects BIOS, Network Cards". PC World.
- ^ "First Vulnerability Found in Microsoft Edge, Affects Other Software as Well". Softopedia.
- ^ "New SMB Relay Attack Steals User Credentials Over Internet". Dark Reading.
- ^ Maryanti, Sayed Achmady (2019-09-15). "Celah Keamanan Kredensial Windows Pada Google Chrome". Jurnal Sains Riset. 9 (3): 18–21. doi:10.47647/jsr.v9i3.204. ISSN 2088-0952.
- ^ "Google Chrome WARNING - This terrifying new HACK leaves Windows PCs open to ATTACK too". Daily Express. 18 May 2017.
- ^ Brossard, Jonathan (2024). Introduction to Procedural Debugging through Binary Libification. USENIX Association. p. 17. ISBN 978-1-939133-43-4.
- ^ "The Witchcraft Compiler Collection Manual Page". Debian.
- ^ "XKEYSCORE". The Intercept. July 2015.
- ^ "NSA's hacking tool is apparently as easy to use as a Google search". Engadget. 2 July 2015.
- ^ Naughton, John (12 October 2013). "US fears back-door routes into the net because it's building them too". The Guardian.
- ^ "NSA: les Américains étaient-ils à l'origine de l'espionnage de l'Elysée en 2012?" (in French). L'Express. 20 November 2012.
- ^ a b "Whitehat Jonathan Brossard Warns Cars Can be Hacked on the Road". Sydney Morning Herald. 31 May 2014.
- ^ James, Guy; Greenfield, Mat (9 March 2015). "Can driverless cars be made safe from hackers?". The Guardian.
- ^ "Hier wird gehackt statt geballert" (in German). Focus Deutschland.
- ^ a b "" J'étais pas bon en foot, je me suis dit : "Tiens, je vais faire du hacking" "" (in French). Le Nouvel Observateur. 25 December 2014.
- ^ "«Watch Dogs» pour se mettre dans la peau d'un pirate informatique" (in French). 20 Minutes. 25 May 2014.
- ^ Pantaleoni, Ana (19 May 2014). "'Watch Dogs' toma Chicago". El Pais (in Spanish).
- ^ "Watch Dogs 2, il videogioco sui Big Data per i Millennials" (in Italian). Corriere de la Sierra. 14 November 2016.
- ^ "Un jeu qui pourrait devenir réalité" (in French). Le Parisien. 27 May 2014.
- ^ "Nmap: The Internet Considered Harmful - DARPA Inference Cheking Kludge Scanning" (PDF). Hakin9.
- ^ "Experts troll 'biggest security mag in the world' with DICKish submission". The Register.
- ^ "Hackito Ergo Sum Team". Hackito Ergo Sum Conference. 2012.
- ^ Leyden, John (1 February 2011). "Alternative security conferences plot European editions". The Register.
- ^ "Sécurité Informatique : NoSuchCon". Le Monde Informatique (in French).
- ^ Karayan, Raphaële (22 November 2014). "Hacking: 'Tout ce que vous mettez sur Internet pourra être réutilisé à votre insu'". L'Express (in French).
- ^ "Shakacon IT Security Conference To Be Held In Hawaii In June". Dark Reading. 8 May 2013.
- ^ "Nullcon Review Board : Profile of Jonathan Brossard". Nullcon Conference.