system76 / firmware-open

System76 Open Firmware
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Support disabling firmware USB stack, while allowing the OS to use USB devices #561

Open DemiMarie opened 4 months ago

DemiMarie commented 4 months ago

Qubes OS isolates USB devices in a dedicated virtual machine. This prevents a malicious USB device from compromising the entire system. However, this protection fails if USB keyboards and mice are supported in the firmware, because a malicious device can inject keystrokes into GRUB or trigger system recovery.

To prevent this attack, firmware could have a configuration option to ignore all attached USB devices. This blocks the above attack: the malicious device will be ignored by firmware, and Qubes OS limits the damage the device can do.