Would Qubes OS have prevented the recent major crypto hacks?

General Discussion
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According to Binance Co-CEO Richard Teng, the initial breach stemmed from a compromised personal laptop belonging to a Binance DevOps engineer.

And in the past, a $1.5 billion Bybit hack started with downloaded macOS malware that scanned the laptop to steal temporary cloud login tokens. (was able to scan around cause of non-isolation)

Based on the Bybit incident, we already know a single-OS system was targeted, and the same likely applies to Binance given how popular MacBooks are among crypto developers.

While such sophisticated adversary could theoretically compromise Qubes OS as well, most of these massive, multi-step hacks simply begin with an engineer running a download in a non-isolated environment.

Hardware security

What i understood is that many crypto developers favor a MacBook for its hardware security. They believe modern risks against strong actors are these days primarily at the hardware level, something Qubes OS cannot easily protect.

However, assuming Qubes OS is used correctly, such as opening untrusted files strictly within a disposable VM, would Qubes OS isolation not have prevented these hacks?

Alternatively, can we assume that a sophisticated adversary would more easily compromise a local Linux VM inside Qubes and use it to attack the underlying hardware, which might be significantly harder to exploit on a tightly integrated MacBook?

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I think it is reasonable to suggest that the cost of the attack would probably be higher on a well configure QubesOS machine vs a mac.

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But securing a DevOps engineer’s machine is insufficient here. The security model should assume that the engineer’s machine can be compromised. In other words, in that sort of case, if you depend on QubesOS vs mac, then something deeper is wrong.

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I believe so.

I agree.

That is true. But it looks like even experienced devs get seduced to download untrusted stuff, aside from how the engineer’s machine is secured, unless it blocks such downloads, downloading untrusted stuff isolated is part of OPSEC. In case of Bybit, it was a job offer what seduced the dev to download. Qubes makes isolation so easy, so your OPSEC gets used to it and prevent such attacks.

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Counterintuitively, stronger isolation could encourage behavior that increases exposure. Security improvements could change human behavior and might increase overall risk.

Maybe security mechanisms should reduce actual risk without increasing the user’s perceived trust in the machine.

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6

I think indeed that Qubes would had made it much harder and would prevent a foothold.

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