WaPo writes about vulnerabilities in Supermicro IPMIs

[jof at thejof.com (Jonathan Lassoff)]

The primary point of IPMI for most users is to be able to administer and
control the box when it's not running.
Using the host itself as a firewall is the quickest way to get that BMC
online, but it kinda defeats the purpose.


On Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 7:46 PM, Jay Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Brandon Martin" <lists.nanog at monmotha.net>
>
> > As to why people wouldn't put them behind dedicated firewalls, imagine
> > something like a single-server colo scenario. Most such providers don't
> > offer any form of lights-out management aside from maybe remote reboot
> > (power-cycle) nor do they offer any form of protected/secondary network
> > to their customers. So, if you want to save yourself from a trip, you
> > chuck the thing raw on a public IP and hope you configured it right.
>
> Well, *I* would firewall eth1 from eth0 and cross-over eth1 to the ILO
> jack;
> let the box be the firewall.  Sure, it's still as breakable as the box
> proper, but security-by-obscurity isn't *bad*, it's just *not good enough*.
>
> It's another layer of tape.
>
> Whether it's teflon or Gorilla is up to you.
>
> Cheers,
> -- jra
> --
> Jay R. Ashworth                  Baylink
> jra at baylink.com
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>