Qubes in tmpfs 🤫

[ddevz]

@qstateless

From a hardcore security perspective, you are generally right that a traditional boot drive is still accessible and writable, even with Dom0 running from RAM. So a breakdown of Qubes OS security via a Xen VM breakout exploit could still compromise one’s system across restarts, if a persistent drive is used.

@nealr

Isn’t there a trusted boot process that would render persistence impossible?

Detectable at least, with a TPM. I’ve read about things like UEFI Secure Boot, Heads, Anti Evil Maid, TrenchBoot (currently being integrated for Qubes AEM by 3mdeb), etc.

I’ve been looking at flashable firmware on PCI devices. I wanted to mention that if you wanted a truely “persistence impossible” situation, you would need to address flashable firmware in your PCI devices, as i do not believe that gets addressed in “secure boot/measured boot/trusted boot”.

Here is a link of my attempt at addressing the situation: How to avoid flashable firmware compromises via pass-through PCI devices?