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Wilfred Hughes

Nov 2, 2019 at 13:01

How do you prevent "trusting trust" attacks with malicious compilers? You don't need a trusted production-grade compiler. It's sufficient to have a really limited trusted compiler or even an untrusted compiler provided the triggers don't overlap. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/01/countering_trus.html

Countering "Trusting Trust" - Schneier on Security

Way back in 1974, Paul Karger and Roger Schell discovered a devastating attack against computer systems. Ken Thompson described it in his classic 1984 speech, “Reflections on Trusting Trust.” Basically, an attacker changes a compiler binary to produce malicious versions of some programs, INCLUDING ITSELF. Once this is done, the attack perpetuates, essentially undetectably. Thompson demonstrated the attack in a devastating way: he subverted a compiler of an experimental victim, allowing Thompson to log in as root without using a password. The victim never noticed the attack, even when they disassembled the binaries—the compiler rigged the disassembler, too...

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